A Few Letters, and a Challenge

What is most striking is that it begins with Alif Lām Mīm. A number of sūrahs open with such letters: Yāsīn, Ṭāhā. Looking at them, or at most of them — Yāsīn, wa-l-Qurʾāni al-ḥakīm; Ṭāhā, mā anzalnā ʿalayka al-Qurʾāna li-tashqā; Ḥā Mīm, ʿAyn Sīn Qāf, kadhālika yūḥī ilayka; Ḥā Mīm, wa-l-kitābi al-mubīn; Alif Lām Mīm, dhālika al-kitābu lā rayba fīh — almost wherever the ḥurūf muqaṭṭaʿāt, the separated letters, appear, the verse following them concerns the Qur'an or the revelation. There is evidently a connection between the letters and the revelation. As to what precisely the letters mean, and whether anyone knows at all, there are many views; some have claimed to know the meaning, holding it a secret between Allah and His messengers, and that the Prophet (peace be upon him) knew it. Allah knows best.

What deserves notice here is that opening with Alif Lām Mīm, directly after Sūrat al-Fātiḥah, was singularly effective with the host community, the Arabs.

The word ʿArab derives from the notion of iʿrāb and taʿrīb: articulation, the putting into words of what is in the heart and the mind so that the meaning is conveyed. That is what it means. For this reason they called everyone who was not an Arab ʿajam: ʿujmah and ʿajam signify dumbness — not as an insult, but literally the condition of one who cannot articulate himself adequately.

The Arabs were intensely proud of their language, and it is indeed a thing to be proud of, being so comprehensive and so various in its shades of meaning. For the goat alone, the shāh, they have sixty or seventy words; for the lion, more than one can count — all to convey slightly different shades. Few other languages are so made.

They supposed themselves, therefore, to possess the summit of eloquence, no one else being capable of articulating anything, and no other language of the kind. Uncivilised as they were in their general conduct, given to fighting and to warring factions, in language they possessed something altogether remarkable. Perhaps that is why they were chosen; for a religion spreads by propagation, and their powers of articulation as the host community are likely to have been among the reasons.

That does not confine the matter to them. Allah has used many others since, and they have learned Arabic — and so, in a manner of speaking, have become Arab. Anyone who knows Arabic may count himself an Arab on that reckoning: if to be an Arab is to articulate oneself in the Arabic language, then such a person is qualified to do so, while there are Arabs who cannot do it properly. May Allah grant everyone an understanding of Arabic, so that the Qur'an may be understood.

Being so proud of their language, their compositions and their poetry, they were met with this: a few letters thrown down before them, of which nobody knows the meaning, and attached almost always to kitāb, this Book. For this reason many of the ʿulamāʾ regard those openings — Yāsīn, Ṭāsīn, Ḥā Mīm — as a challenge to those who believed they knew Arabic thoroughly: what do you make of this? What understanding of it do you have? A few letters only.

And none has been able to meet it. Allah (swt) states the challenge plainly in at least three places in the Qur'an. Here, in Sūrat al-Baqarah, is the first:

The same is said elsewhere: bring something like it, if you will. That too is discussed in Sūrat al-Baqarah. None has been able to do it. They were among the most eloquent people ever to have spoken Arabic, and they could not meet the challenge, though they wished to; nor has anyone since; nor will anyone in time to come.