qualification, then no expression in any human speech is free of every qualification, whether the sentence is nominal or verbal. This is why the terms kalām (“speech”) and kalimah (“utterance”) in Arabic—and indeed in other languages—are used only for qualified expressions: complete sentences, whether nominal, verbal, or vocative, if the last is regarded as a third category.

An isolated noun, verb, or particle conveying a meaning while being neither a noun nor a verb is never called a kalimah in ordinary Arabic speech. Calling it a kalimah is merely a grammatical convention, just as grammarians called certain expressions fi‘l (“verb,” literally “act”) and divided them into past, present, and imperative verbs. The Arabs never called an expression a fi‘l; rather, grammarians adopted this convention, naming the expression after what it signifies. Thus, they called an expression signifying the occurrence of an act in the past a “past verb,” and likewise for the other categories.

Similarly, wherever the term kalimah occurs in the Book and the Sunnah—or indeed in Arabic poetry and prose—it means a meaningful utterance, which grammarians call a complete sentence. Examples include the words of the Most High:

“and to warn those who say, ‘Allah has taken a son.’ They have no knowledge of this, nor did their forefathers. Grave is the utterance that comes from their mouths; they speak nothing but a lie.”

And His words, Most High:

“and He made the word of those who disbelieved the lowest, while the word of Allah is the highest.”

And His words, Most High:

“Come to a word common between us and you.”

And His words:

“And he made it a lasting word among his descendants.”

And His words:

“and bound them to the word of righteousness, for they were more entitled to it and worthy of it.”

And the words of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace:

“The truest utterance ever spoken by a poet is the saying of Labīd: ‘Indeed, everything apart from Allah is vain.’”