Ibrāhīm 14:36

Rabbi innahunna aḍlalna kathīran mina'n-nās · Fa-man tabiʿanī fa-innahu minnī · Wa man ʿaṣānī fa-innaka Ghafūrun Raḥīm

"'My Lord! They have led many of mankind astray. Whoever follows me is of me; and whoever disobeys me — You are indeed forgiving, merciful.'"

The pronoun and the verb come in the feminine plural: innahunna aḍlalna — "they led astray."

A note on the language: in Arabic the plural of things without reason may take a feminine singular or a feminine plural pronoun. Here the feminine plural is chosen.

But what really must be recorded is the verb itself: the prayer attributes the act of leading astray to the idols. Yet an idol is a mute object.

I record this as an observation about the language: in Arabic an outcome that a thing has caused may be attributed to that thing; the lexicographers call this the attribution of an act to its cause. That is, the sentence does not give the idols a will; it names them as the occasion of the going astray.

And the same matter was treated at al-Furqān 25/17-19: there the beings that had been served denied on the day of reckoning that they had been served. I rely on that treatment.

The expression is worth recording: minnī — "is of me".

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the particle itself: min here conveys not a lineage but a belonging. That is, the sentence ties attachment to Abraham not to blood but to following.

And this prepares the hardest sentence in the sūra concerning the prayer.

The construction of the sentence is striking in Arabic and is a point of word order.

The answer to the conditional sentence does not logically fit the condition:

"Whoever disobeys me — You are forgiving."

The expected answer would have been a verdict: "he is not of me" or "I leave him to You." Instead of this the verse sets down two names of forgiveness.

The lexicographers explain this structure thus: the answer has been elided (left unsaid) and in its place the ground of the answer has been set. In Arabic this is called ellipsis and the giving of a ground.

I record this as my own reading, its ground being the incompleteness of the sentence: Abraham frames no sentence of judgement for the one who disobeys. He leaves off pronouncing the verdict and names two names of the One who will pronounce it. In the first half a belonging is declared; in the second half a denial of belonging is not framed.

And at al-Mumtaḥana 60/4 Abraham's asking forgiveness for his father was treated; it was compared there with 60/12 of the same sūra and it was recorded that the difference lies in the one addressed, not in the act itself. I rely on that treatment.