In The Qur’an, eloquence has reached a seemingly unattainable level, appreciable only to those deeply familiar with the Arabic language. So powerful is the divine speech that it literally leaves a conscious reader, recitor, or listener in a state of ecstasy, almost unable to breath.

Think of a time when you’ve been listening to a moving oration, or a beautiful song, or a piece of poetry, and one part hits you so hard that you feel completely overwhelmed, and perhaps begin to cry. So it is with every word of The Qur’an, if you’re sufficiently capable of understand its language. Its eloquence is considered one of its miracles: Dr. Fadl Abbas writes that there are 4 categories of Qur’anic miracle: scientific in nature, legal, unseen (i.e. concerning things not apparent), and linguistic. Furthermore, every text has weak sections: these, of course, are a reflection of deficiency in the author, which is natural, since we’re all human. In the study of poetry, one finds criticism of “weak verses” where the poet might have used a more accurate word, or a more effective style, or a more measured rhyme scheme, etc. Not so in The Qur’an.The linguistic miracle, simply put, is that there is no word that can be removed from The Qur’an, nor any inserted, without weakening the text.

I’d like to present one example of this unimaginable eloquence, concerning the letter wao, which in Arabic means “and” (i.e. in Arabic this single letter means “and”. it looks like this و and is pronounced “wow” or “wao”. I favour the latter spelling). Insha’Allah through a comparative example we can see how Allah, with but the use of one letter, can inscribe a wealth of knowledge.

Both of these verses are from Surat ash-Shua’ara, or “The Poets”. The majority of the sura deals with the stories of various prophets who were rejected by their peoples, and how Allah protected them and eventually took the tribes and nations to task. Our first example comes from the story of the Prophet Salih (alayhi as-salam), sent to the tribe of Thamud.

Upon hearing his message, “They said: ‘Truly, you are merely one of the musahhareen; you are nothing more than a man like us!” (26: 153-154).

(transliteration: Qalu innama anta min al musahareen / ma anta illa basharun mithluna )

In the second instance, Prophet Shuaib (alayhi as-salam) is rejectected with a similar retort:

“They said ‘Truly, you are merely one of the musahhareen, and you are nothing more than a man like us!” (26: 185-186)

(transliteration: Qalu innama anta min al musahhareen / wa ma anta illa basharun mithluna)

Musahhar, of which musahhareen is the plural, is an Arabic word that has two meanings: the first is ‘bewitched’. Abdullah Yusuf Ali therefore translated both of these verses using this meaning, thus:

They said: “Thou art only one of those bewitched! / (and) Thou art no more than a mortal like us”. The only difference in his translation is that that of the “and”, or, in Arabic, the wao (because in Arabic, this is the only noticeable b/w the first and second sets of verses).

Musahhar does, however, carry a second meaning. Though used infrequently, it can mean “One with a digestive tract” – which would seem an odd thing to say to someone, certainly – “Hey, you are just one with a digestive tract!” – but in reality its meaning is that you are just like us: you eat, drink, and go to the washroom as well, so don’t act so holy.

So which translation is more appropriate?

This is where the secret of the wao comes in. As Dr. Fadl Abbas points out, the fact that there is no wao in the first verse means that they are saying the same thing twice, in different ways – just as one in English might say “You’re a dolt! You’re a complete fool!”. It would be odd to add “and” b/w these two phrases. Thus, in the first instance, we can accurately reflect the meaning of the verse by translating as follows:

“You are merely a human! You are nothing more than a man like us!”

In the second instance, however, the use of the wao indicates that the people are joining two dissimilar statements, thus, the meaning of musahhar here is “bewitched”. Thus, the translation is:

“You are merely one of the bewitched, and you are nothing more than a man like us!”

This beautiful differentiation would be sufficient to indicate the eloquence of The Qur’an, but Allah goes further, teaching us through this single letter an important history lesson. We know that Thamud, the tribe of Salih, were of the original Arab tribes (al Arab al Badiyah) who came before even the prophets Ismail and Ishaq, and that the people of Madyan, the tribe of Shuaib, lived during the same period (and near the same area) in which the Pharoahs ruled over Egypt.

Dr. Fadl Abbas points out accurately that we may also infer that the first instance of sorcery becoming widespread among a society was during the Pharoanic times – the people of Salih used the word musahhar in a different manner entirely, whereas those of Shuaib used it to describe their prophet as ‘bewitched’. Thus, Allah reflects through a single letter subtleties both of usage and development between two vastly different societies. Wao.