God says
The Most Gracious
has imparted this Qur’an [unto man].
He has created man:
He has imparted unto him articulate thought and speech.* -- Q55:1-4
*The term al-bayan – denoting “the means whereby a thing is [intellectually] circumscribed and made clear” (Raghib) – applies to both thought and speech inasmuch as it comprises the faculty of making a thing or an idea apparent to the mind and conceptually distinct from other things and ideas, as well as the power to express this cognition clearly in written or spoken language (Taj al-‘Arus): hence, in the above context, “articulate thought and speech”, recalling the “the knowledge of all the names” (i.e., the faculty of conceptual thinking) with which man is endowed.
The term ism (“name”), “implies, according to all philologists, an expression “conveying the knowledge [of a thing] … applied to denote a substance or an accident or an attribute for the purpose of distinction” (Lane 1V, 1435): in the philosophical terminology, a “concept”. From this it may legitimately be inferred that “the knowledge of all the names” denotes here man’s faculty of logical definition and, thus, of conceptual thinking. That by “Adam” the whole human race is meant here becomes obvious from the preceding reference, by the angels to “such as will spread corruption on earth and will shed blood”.
* The phrase: “the knowledge of all the names” is reference to 2:31: “And He imparted unto Adam the names of all things”.
Which, then, of your Sustainer’s powers can you disavow?* -- Q55:13
*The majority of the classical commentators interpret the dual form of address appearing in this phrase – rabbikuma (“the Sustainer of you two”) and tukazziban (“do you [or “can you”] two disavow”) – as relating to the worlds of men and the jinn;
but the obvious explanation (mentioned, among others, by Razi) is that it refers to the two categories of human beings, men and women, to both of whom the Qur’an is addressed. The plural noun ala’ rendered by me as “powers”, signifies literally “blessings” or “bounties”; but as the refrain, which is repeated many times in this surah, not only bears on the bounties which God bestows on His creation but, more generally, on all manifestations of His creativeness and might, some of the earliest commentators – e.g., Ibn Zayd, as quoted by Tabari – regard the term ala’ , in this context, as synonymous with qudrah (“power” or “powers”).
Prophet said
“…Excessive talk without remembrance of God produces hardness of heart; and indeed the remotest man from God is the hard-hearted”– H: Tirmizi. N: Ibn Omar.
