for the worshipper may at one time be sincerely devoted and at another associate partners with Allah. The Lord Most High, however, is never anything but one God. Although the circumstantial qualifier describes the object, it also qualifies the subject.

For they said that they worship Him in this state. It necessarily follows that their worship of Him takes place in no other state. He also made clear that, in His words, “We worship your God and the God of your fathers” … “one God,” the circumstantial qualifier relates to both subject and object—to the worshipper and the One worshipped. For the grammatical element governing this qualifier is worship, which is the worshipper’s act, while what Arabic grammar calls the object is the One worshipped.

Similarly, regarding the clause “and we submit to Him,” it has been said that “and” is a coordinating conjunction, and also that it introduces a circumstantial clause, meaning: we worship Him in this state. They said: “It qualifies either the subject of ‘we worship’ or its object, since the pronominal suffix in ‘to Him’ refers back to the latter.”

This presentation of alternatives is mistaken, for it qualifies both together. If they worship Him while submitting to Him, then they are submitting both while they are worshippers and while He is worshipped. This circumstance does not accompany only their being worshippers to the exclusion of His being worshipped, or vice versa. Here, the adverbial and circumstantial expression is an utterance, not an isolated word. This is why they were confused about it: a single word cannot grammatically qualify both subject and object.

Thus, if you say, “I struck Zayd sitting,” the sitting qualifies either the subject or the object. But if you say, “I struck him while the people