And definite nouns include pronouns and demonstratives, such as “I,” “you,” and “he,” and “this” and “that”; relative pronouns, as in:

“Those who establish prayer and give zakah”;

nouns made definite by the definite article, such as “the messenger”; and proper names, such as Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, as well as the month of Ramadan.

They also include nouns made definite through their attachment to a definite noun, as in His words:

“And purify My House,”

and His words:

“Wash your faces and your hands up to the elbows,”

and:

“Allah’s she-camel and her right to drink,”

and His words:

“It has been made lawful for you on the night of fasting.”

They also include a vocative referring to a particular person, as in Joseph’s words:

“O my father, I saw eleven stars,”

and the words of the daughter of the man of Midian:

“O my father, hire him.”

The word “father” in the former passage refers to Jacob, while in the latter it refers to the man of Midian whose daughter Moses married. He was not Shuayb, as some mistakenly suppose. Rather, Muslim scholars of the early generations and the People of the Book know that he was not Shuayb, as has been explained at length elsewhere.

The point here is that these definite nouns fall into several categories, and each