LessonsSupplementary Practice 25 — Comparative Rhetoric of Sūrat az-Zalzalah and Sūrat al-ʿĀdiyātQuiz

فَمَنْ يَعْمَلْ مِثْقَالَ ذَرَّةٍ خَيْرًا يَرَهُ
Whoever does an atom’s weight of good will see it. (99:7)

أَفَلَا يَعْلَمُ إِذَا بُعْثِرَ مَا فِي الْقُبُورِ
Does he not realize when what is in graves is brought forth? (100:9)

The first verse expresses a very broad moral rule in few words, illustrating the value of ījāz al-qaṣr. In the second, some grammatical accounts supply an unexpressed complement of yaʿlam, understood from context; on that analysis, ellipsis operates. The mechanism of brevity is not the same in both cases.

Concision without omission allows the expressed wording itself to bear rich meaning. Concision by omission depends on a contextual indication that safely restores what is left unspoken.

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Concision, ellipsis and semantic completeness

Supplementary Practice 25 — Comparative Rhetoric of Sūrat az-Zalzalah and Sūrat al-ʿĀdiyāt

فَمَنْ يَعْمَلْ مِثْقَالَ ذَرَّةٍ خَيْرًا يَرَهُ
Whoever does an atom’s weight of good will see it. (99:7)

أَفَلَا يَعْلَمُ إِذَا بُعْثِرَ مَا فِي الْقُبُورِ
Does he not realize when what is in graves is brought forth? (100:9)

The first verse expresses a very broad moral rule in few words, illustrating the value of ījāz al-qaṣr. In the second, some grammatical accounts supply an unexpressed complement of yaʿlam, understood from context; on that analysis, ellipsis operates. The mechanism of brevity is not the same in both cases.

Concision without omission allows the expressed wording itself to bear rich meaning. Concision by omission depends on a contextual indication that safely restores what is left unspoken.