(p-187) His saying, exalted and glorified is He:

﴿Say, O Allah, Master of the Kingdom. You give the Kingdom to whom You will and take away the Kingdom from whom You will. You honor whom You will and humiliate whom You will. In Your Hand is good. Indeed, You are capable of all things.﴾ ﴿You bring the night into the day and bring the day into the night. You bring the living out of the dead and bring the dead out of the living. And You provide for whom You will without account.﴾

Some of the scholars said: This verse is a refutation of the falsehood of the Christians of Najran in their saying: Indeed, Jesus is Allah. This is because these attributes clarify to every sound nature that Jesus, peace be upon him, is not in any of them. And Qatadah said: "It was mentioned to us that the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, asked his Lord to grant him the kingdom of Persia and Rome." So the verse was revealed regarding that. And Mujahid said: The kingdom in this verse refers to prophethood. The correct understanding is that He is the Owner of all kingdoms absolutely in all its types, and the most noble kingdom He grants is the happiness of the Hereafter. It has been narrated that the verse was revealed because the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, gave glad tidings to his nation of the conquest of the kingdom of Persia and others, so the Jews and the hypocrites said: Impossible! And they denied that.

The grammarians differed regarding the structure of the word "Allahumma" after their consensus that it is the letter "hā'" with a heavy "mīm" that is open, and that it is an address. The evidence for this is that it does not come used in the meaning of a statement. The view of Al-Khalil, Sibawayh, and the Basrians is that the original form is: "O Allah!" So when the word was used without the letter of address which is "yā," they made this heavy "mīm" a substitute for the letter of address. The "dhammah" on the "hā'" is the "dhammah" of the singular addressed name. Two letters were lost, and they were compensated with two letters. The view of Al-Farra' and the Kufans is that the original "Allahumma" is "O Allah, umm": meaning, "O Allah, with goodness," and that the "dhammah" on the "hā'" is the "dhammah" of the hamzah that was in "umm" which was transferred. And Al-Zajjaj refuted this saying and said: It is impossible to leave the "dham" which is an indication of addressing the singular and to place in the name of Allah the "dhammah" of "umm." This is a deviation in the name of Allah, the Exalted. And this is an exaggeration from Al-Zajjaj. He also said: This hamzah that is omitted in speech, its matter is that it is sometimes brought as they said: "Wailumihi in wail ummihi," and most often the hamzah is affirmed, and it has never been heard "O Allah, umm" in this expression. He also said: And the Arabs do not say "O Allahumma." And the Kufans said: The letter of address may enter upon "Allahumma" and they recited regarding that:

؎ And it is not upon you to say whenever ∗∗∗ you glorified or proclaimed the Oneness, O Allahumma, what

؎ Return to us our Sheikh, in peace.

They said: If the letter 'm' were a substitute for the letter of calling, they would not have come together. Al-Zajjaj said: This is an oddity, and its speaker is not known, nor should it be abandoned in light of what is in the Book of Allah and in all the records of the Arabs. The Kufans said: The letter 'm' is only added lightly in words like 'fam' and 'ibnam' and similar ones, but a doubled 'm' is not added. The Basrians said: When two letters are omitted, they are compensated with two letters. And 'Malik' is in the accusative case due to calling, as Sibawayh stated regarding this in His saying, 'Say, O Allah, Creator of the heavens and the earth' [Az-Zumar: 46]. And he said: 'O Allah' cannot be described because the letter 'm' has been added to it. Al-Zajjaj said: 'Malik' in my view is a description of the name of Allah, glorified and exalted is He, and likewise 'Creator of the heavens.' Abu Ali said: This is the position of Abu al-Abbas, and what Sibawayh said is more accurate, because there is nothing in the described names that is like 'O Allah,' as it is a singular name to which a sound has been added, and sounds cannot be described, like 'ghaq.' It seems that the ruling for the singular name is that it should not be described, even if they have described it in some instances. So when what cannot be described was added here to what was supposed to not be described, it became like a sound added to a sound, similar to 'hayhala,' and thus it was not described. Al-Nadr ibn Shumail said: Whoever says 'O Allah' has called upon Allah with all His names. And Al-Hasan said: 'O Allah, the gathering of supplication.'

And Allah, glorified and exalted is He, specified 'good' in mention, while all things are in His hand, as the verse is in the meaning of supplication and desire. It is as if the meaning is: In Your hand is good, so grant me a generous share of it. It is said: The intended meaning is that in Your hand is good and evil, and one was omitted for the indication of the other, as He said: 'He protects you from the heat' [An-Nahl: 81]. Al-Naqqash said: In Your hand is good, meaning victory and spoils, and one was omitted for the indication of the other.

Ibn Abbas, Mujahid, Al-Hasan, Qatadah, Al-Suddi, and Ibn Zayd said regarding His saying, 'You bring the night into the day'... the verse means that what is taken away from the day increases in the night, and what is taken away from the night increases in the day, according to the nature of each season of the year. The words of the verse also imply that the alternation of night and day occurs, as if the departure of one of them is an entrance into the other.

The interpreters differed in the meaning of His saying, 'And You bring the living out of the dead'... The verse means that He brings the believer out of the disbeliever and the disbeliever out of the believer. This is similarly narrated from Salman Al-Farsi. Al-Zuhri narrated that the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, entered upon one of his wives and saw a woman with a beautiful voice. He said: 'Who is this?' She said: 'One of your aunts.' He said: 'Indeed, my aunts in this land are strange; which of my aunts is she?' She said: 'Khalidah bint Al-Aswad ibn Abd Yaghuth.' The Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, said: 'Glorified is He who brings the living out of the dead.' And she was a righteous woman, while her father was a disbeliever and one of those who mocked the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him. Peace be upon him. The intended meaning in this saying is the death of the heart of the disbeliever and the life of the heart of the believer, and life and death are metaphorical.

And a large majority of scholars went to the view that life and death in the verse are indeed life in reality and death in reality, not by metaphor. Then they differed in the examples they interpreted it with. Ikrimah said: It is the emergence of the chick while it is alive from the egg while it is dead, and the emergence of the egg while it is dead from the chick while it is alive. The term emergence in this example and what is similar to it is a term firmly established according to its customary usage.

And Abdullah ibn Mas'ud said in the interpretation of the verse: It is the sperm that emerges from the man while it is dead, and the man emerges from it while it is dead. The term emergence in the movement of the sperm until it becomes a man is merely an expression of the change of state, as one would say about a strong-built boy: from this emerges a strong man. And this meaning is what Ibn Jinni calls: the abstraction, meaning the stripping of something from one state to another is an emergence. And the saying of Him, the Exalted, (and He brings forth the dead from the living) may mean that all animals are made dead, and this is the very meaning of abstraction. Ibn Jinni recited in support of that:

The Banu Marwan unjustly returned our blood, ∗∗∗ ∗∗∗ And in Allah - if they do not act justly - there is a just ruler.

And Al-Suddi narrated from Abu Malik who said in the interpretation of the verse: It is the seed that emerges from the ear of grain, and the ear of grain emerges from the seed, and the pit emerges from the palm tree, and the palm tree emerges from the pit. Life in the palm tree and the ear of grain is a comparison.

And His saying, the Exalted: (without account) it was said that its meaning is: without account from you, because He, the Exalted, does not fear that His treasures will be diminished. This is the saying of Al-Rabi' and others. And it was said: The meaning of without account is: from anyone for you, because He, the Exalted, has no one to reverse His command. And Asim read in the narration of Abu Bakr, and Ibn Kathir, and Abu Amr, and Ibn Amer