LessonsThe Subject of Predication: Omission, Mention and Modes of IdentificationQuiz

وَلَوْ تَرَى إِذِ الْمُجْرِمُونَ نَاكِسُوا رُءُوسِهِمْ
If you could see when the guilty hang their heads. (al-Sajdah 32:12)

The second-person form does not have to be confined to one named hearer. It places any possible observer imaginatively before the scene: if you witnessed the guilty with lowered heads, you would grasp its gravity. This gives an absent event the force of a vivid address.

The grammatical form remains singular second person, while the rhetorical invitation can be general. Do not confuse the number of a pronoun with the breadth of those invited to imagine the scene.

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Direct address as vivid portrayal

The Subject of Predication: Omission, Mention and Modes of Identification

وَلَوْ تَرَى إِذِ الْمُجْرِمُونَ نَاكِسُوا رُءُوسِهِمْ
If you could see when the guilty hang their heads. (al-Sajdah 32:12)

The second-person form does not have to be confined to one named hearer. It places any possible observer imaginatively before the scene: if you witnessed the guilty with lowered heads, you would grasp its gravity. This gives an absent event the force of a vivid address.

The grammatical form remains singular second person, while the rhetorical invitation can be general. Do not confuse the number of a pronoun with the breadth of those invited to imagine the scene.