“A noun, a verb, and a particle conveying a meaning, which is neither a noun nor a verb.”

Since linguistic usage recognizes both nouns and verbs as falling under the term harf, he distinguished this third category, which grammarians call a particle, by describing it as conveying a meaning while being neither a noun nor a verb. These are the meaning-bearing units from which speech is composed. As for the letters of the alphabet, they are written simply as individual letter symbols and pronounced without grammatical inflection. They are described as neither inflected nor indeclinable, since these descriptions apply only to words in syntactic combination.

If, according to this view, everything apart from these letters is clear, then the purpose has been achieved: the sole aim is to understand the speech of Allah and the speech of His Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. Furthermore, it may be said that most people have discussed the meaning of these letters. If their meaning is known, then the meaning of the ambiguous passages is known. If their meaning is unknown, and they constitute the ambiguous passages, then the meaning of everything else is known. That is what we seek to establish.

Moreover, Allah Most High says:

“Some of its verses are clear—they are the foundation of the Book—and others are ambiguous.”

According to the majority of scholars, these letters are not counted as verses; only the Kufan scholars count them as such.

The authentically reported occasion for the revelation of this verse indicates that passages other than these letters are also ambiguous. Nevertheless, this view accords with what is reported of the Jews seeking to determine spans of time from the letters of the alphabet.