first, that His handiwork, on this understanding, is neither independent of Him, nor sustained by anything other than Him, nor outside Him. It is therefore included under His name as a dependent adjunct, not because it forms part of what the name denotes. Inclusive designations and general names often encompass things as adjuncts, rather than as parts of what they denote. For example, if someone says, “I have sold you this horse,” its horseshoes are included.

Similarly, if someone says, “Zayd entered my house,” his clothes fall within the scope of his name. The same applies to “I carried Zayd” and “Zayd rode the animal.” When “the descendants of Hāshim” are mentioned, their clients are included, because the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“A people’s client is one of them.”

An ally or a sister’s son may also be included among them. This is well known in Arabic usage and among historians of the Prophet’s campaigns.

The second respect is that, when someone says, “The people came, except Zayd,” khalā here is a defective verb belonging to the same grammatical class as kāna (to be), and Zaydan is put into the accusative by it. The verb contains a nominative pronoun referring back to mā, which is a relative pronoun like al-ladhī (who or which). This clause is the relative clause attached to mā. The underlying wording is: “The people who are without Zayd stood up.” However, mā can refer to one, two, or a whole group, and the pronoun referring back to it more often follows its grammatical form than its meaning.

Thus, ra’aytu mā ra’aytuhu min al-rijāl (“I saw those whom I saw among the men”) is better than saying mā ra’aytuhum min al-rijāl (“those whom I saw among the men”). Likewise, the construction wa-minhum man yastami‘u ilayka—“And among them are those who listen to you”—is more common and more eloquent than man yastami‘ūna (“those who listen”).

For this reason, the construction became firmly established, so that mā khalā Zaydan (“except Zayd”) stands in place of al-ladhī khalā (“the one who is without”), al-ladhīna khalaw and al-lātī khalawna—the corresponding masculine and feminine plural forms—and similar expressions. Thus, you say: “The women stood up, except Hind.” The word mā either has a syntactic position, namely that of an adjectival modifier