Abū Rawq: “His judgment fell short regarding his own self.” The Basran grammarians did not recognize this usage. Some of them therefore interpreted it as “He was ignorant of himself,” as Ibn Kaysān and al-Zajjāj did. He explained: “For whoever worships anyone other than Allah is ignorant of himself, because he does not know his Creator.”

Their interpretation, however, is weak. Even if its meaning is granted to be correct, the word He used is safiha; and safuha is an intransitive verb, not a transitive one, whereas jahila (“to be ignorant of”) is transitive. The Arabs never use saffahtu kadhā to mean “I was ignorant of such-and-such.” Rather, they say safuha, with the vowel u, and its verbal noun safāhah, meaning “he became foolish”; and safiha, with the vowel i, meaning “he displayed foolishness.” They make a similar distinction between faqiha (“he understood”) and faquha (“he became learned”).

Some have also recorded the expression safihat al-shurba, used when one drinks excessively. This accords with the usage reported by al-Farrāʾ: that is, his drinking became foolish, so he “was foolish in his drinking” when he exceeded the proper limit.

Al-Akhfash and Yūnus said: “It is in the accusative because a preposition has been omitted”; that is, safiha fī nafsihi (“he was foolish concerning himself”). Their explanation, “because a preposition has been omitted,” does not establish a general rule on which analogies may be based. Rather, prepositions are sometimes omitted in constructions attested in Arab speech, allowing the verb to govern the noun directly—although this can be extended by analogy in certain constructions.

Safiha, however, is not such a case. One does not say safihtu amra Allāhi (“I was foolish concerning Allah’s command”) or safihtu dīna al-Islāmi (“I was foolish concerning the religion of Islam”) to mean “I was ignorant of it,” on the understanding that an omitted fī (“concerning”) is implied. Rather, only what pertains specifically to the person is described as foolish and placed in the accusative as a specifying complement.