“Grave indeed is the word that issues from their mouths; they utter nothing but a lie.”

Such instances are plentiful in the language of the Arabs. When some late grammarians came across examples of this sort, they claimed, “Sometimes the term kalām (speech) is intended to mean kalimah (a single word).” Yet the matter is not as they supposed. In authentic Arabic usage the word kalimah is never applied to anything but a complete sentence—the very thing the Arabs call kalām. Neither kalimah nor kalām is used for anything short of a full utterance. For that reason Sībawayh noted that the Arabs quote something by saying, “He said …,” only when what follows is kalām; they do not introduce anything less than that with the verb “to say.”

Calling a lone noun a “word,” a lone verb a “word,” or a single particle—such as hal or bal—a “word” is nothing but a technical convention adopted by certain grammarians; it has no basis in the Arabs’ own speech. The Arabs refer to these isolated items as ḥurūf (particles/letters). Hence the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—said:

“Whoever recites the Qur’an shall have ten good deeds for every ḥarf. I do not say that Alif-Lām-Mīm is one ḥarf; rather, Alif is a ḥarf, Lām is a ḥarf, and Mīm is a ḥarf.”

The careful scholars have concluded that in this ḥadīth ḥarf means a single named letter, whereas what is customarily called a verb is a “ḥarf of meaning.” His words, “Alif is a ḥarf,” show that Alif—being the name of a letter—is itself a noun.

For this reason, when al-Khalīl asked his companions how to pronounce the zāʾ in the name Zayd and they replied, “zāʾ,” he said, “You have uttered the name; the ḥarf is rather ‘zah.’” The same point is illustrated in the verse ascribed to Abū al-Aswad