LessonsDeparture from Expected Expression: Overt Nouns, Pronouns and Rhetorical PurposeQuiz

قُلْ هُوَ اللَّهُ أَحَدٌ
Say: the matter is that Allah is One.

A recognized analysis treats «هو» here as the pronoun of affair: it prepares the hearer for a momentous declaration, explained by «الله أحد». The monotheistic assertion thus enters with marked gravity.

اللَّهُ الصَّمَدُ
Allah, the One upon whom all depend.

The overt divine name and «الصمد» carry their own semantic weight. The two clauses must be analyzed separately: the mere occurrence of a pronoun somewhere does not make all subsequent constructions instances of the same syntactic mechanism.

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A Qur’anic example of the pronoun of affair

Departure from Expected Expression: Overt Nouns, Pronouns and Rhetorical Purpose

قُلْ هُوَ اللَّهُ أَحَدٌ
Say: the matter is that Allah is One.

A recognized analysis treats «هو» here as the pronoun of affair: it prepares the hearer for a momentous declaration, explained by «الله أحد». The monotheistic assertion thus enters with marked gravity.

اللَّهُ الصَّمَدُ
Allah, the One upon whom all depend.

The overt divine name and «الصمد» carry their own semantic weight. The two clauses must be analyzed separately: the mere occurrence of a pronoun somewhere does not make all subsequent constructions instances of the same syntactic mechanism.