Thesis statement  — Unity: cohesion and coherence

Unity is the Absolute Truth and every relative-truth—physical realm is pointer to Unity—

A worth reading book is that which has a unity and organization of parts. That lacking it would be a mess, non-scholarly work relatively unreadable and annoying to the reader. The reader must be able to tell what the whole book is about, simply and briefly in a single sentence or at most few sentences. What is the book about as a whole is the question that leads the reader to discover the leading theme - thesis statement of the book. A thesis statement makes an assertion, it is not just a statement or observation. It is a specific, definite and limited assertion that needs to be explained and supported by further discussion, concrete evidence and plausible arguments. It is main idea not title of the book. Thesis statement takes a stance - a position rather than announcing the topic or subject.

Works of literature usually do not contain a specific sentence that sums up the core concept of the writing. In what is called implicit thesis statement the primary point of reading is conveyed indirectly at various locations throughout the work.

Intelligibility of the book is the source for the accomplishment of communication. The objective of communication is achieved when the reader comprehends the underlying, over all meaning of the message conveyed through a dynamic process of text building.

What is stated above about a book—in academic parlance—it is portrayed by terms cohesion and coherence in a discourse. A discourse is unified when all of its contents relate directly to its thesis statement—unity of book; and the discourse is well developed when it has given sufficient information to the reader to make him feel the thesis has sufficiently been discussed. The discourse is coherent when all of its contents are written clearly, logically and in a manner that is easy to follow.

Thesis statement is distinct from a statement of fact. Thesis statement is arguable and the author proves it by concrete evidence and cogent reasoning and argumentation; and challenges the opponents by pointing out weaknesses and fallacies of their understanding and belief contrary to the thesis statement. Thereby, it is easy for a critical reader to get to the Thesis statement which enables him to study the Discourse coherently as a Unity, notwithstanding the variety and plenty of topics and concepts it may have in its ambit.

It is the prime responsibility of a critical reader and professional translator/interpreter, after determining the type of book, to determine the Thesis Statement of the Discourse because without it he will have no grasp of it; whereby his work will be lacking coherence and mostly be vague and misleading.

It is unfortunate that the scholars - translators - exegetes; claimant of belief and non-believers alike, who openly or subtly alleged that Grand Qur’ān lacks cohesion and coherence—unity and organization, seem to have naively overlooked and ignored the fact that unity of a book revolves around its main theme. They never realized the Theme of Grand Qur’ān, just two sentences—

The major chunk of the text of Grand Qur’ān comprising of informative-declarative-scientific and narrative discourse are the evidence and arguments to prove the first part of the Thesis Statement.

Every individual, in the judgment of Allah the Exalted, is in fact a scientist because he is endowed cognitive - perceptive faculties and intellect to differentiate between things and phenomena and to draw conclusions and perceive what is not otherwise within the ambit of vision.

And the Grand Qur’ān itself is the evidence and infallible argument to prove the veracity of second part of the main theme. Grand Qur’ān is the biography of the exalted Messenger—Spokesperson of the Supreme Sovereign of the Physical realms. It is not ordinary type of biography that covers the period of corporeal birth and natural death of a person, but it is par excellence biography that incorporates existence both in the Abstract Realm—the Realm known only to Allah the Exalted and then his descent and corporeal appearance (birth) in the Physical Realm from Praised Abode, along with Qur’ān (7:157)

The exalted Messenger while introducing and delivering the superb Discourse did not claim to be its author but declared it as the Intellectual Property of Allah the Exalted. The inimitability of Grand Qur’ān and proving it of Divine Origin is the irrefutable evidence that the great of creations Muhammad [Sal'lallaa'hoalaih'wa'salam] is the Messenger - Spokesperson of Allah the Exalted.

Since humanity is its audience what should be conspicuous in its contents is the presence of all that is relevant to human beings. It is clarified:

All that is relevant to human beings is bound to render the scope and field of the discourse encompassing Man's nature and nurture, every topic, subject, substance, theory, and idea the Mankind is concerned with. Thereby, one can imagine that the semantic information embedded in it will be extraordinarily large and diversified. It was, therefore, of utmost importance that the variety of issues were interweaved rendering the Divine Discourse as unified whole. It was done:

: It is a verbal sentence, Verb-Subject and its Object: the Discourse is mentioned after the beneficiaries of the act by the prepositional phrase: "for the benefit of them". Verb is Perfect; First person; Plural/Sovereign Singular; Masculine; [Form-II]; [نَا] Suffixed Subject Pronoun; nominative state; مصدر-تَوصِيلٌ Verbal noun. Form-II verbs are: Attributive-Estimative/Declarative: The derivative verb makes an attribution to object; to consider someone or something to be something. It stems from Root: و ص ل.  It leads to the perception of joining a thing with another that renders them together, in a sequence; joint, link, intertwinement, and junction/union. The irreducible semantic feature of this Root is amalgamation that renders things into a unified whole, an interwoven state, a union, joined. Thereby, when it will be used in relation to a discourse that has many different issues, concepts, subjects it will refer weaving them all to create one unified whole like many strands are twisted to make rope.

Qu r’ān written in Arabic even otherwise seems a single continuous string, depicting first word to its last word as a chain, since it has no concept of "capital" letter in the beginning nor it has end marker like English language. It is also described by Epithet "String - ":

Verbal sentence: comprises of: Verb: Imperative; second person; plural; masculine; [Form-VIII]; [و] Subject Pronoun, in nominative state; مصدر-إِعْتِصَامٌ Verbal noun. It stems from Root: ع ص م which, according to Ibn Faris the renowned lexicographer, leads to the perception of grasping, hold; and fortify, protect, prevent; and association, companionship. Form-VIII verb add meanings of subject doing the act of verb diligently, and/or sincerely. The Prepositional Phrase coupled with Possessive Phrase: relates to the verb. The preposition: بـِ designates contiguity in its broadest sense. It has a wide range of uses including spatiotemporal, instrumental and manner adverbial. It is used inter alia for the purposes: 1) [للإلصاقِ] for connectivity; 2) [للإِسْتَعَانَةِ] for assistance; instrument; 3) [لِلتَّعدِيَةِ] for making a verb transitive. Considering the command, it signifies by taking recourse to its object the command should be complied with. The state that will emerge by complying the command would be what is signified by the verbal noun: إِعْتِصَامٌ.

A nation-fraternity comes into being only when there is a book; a social contract or a constitution that serves as a rope to conjoin people irrespective of their colour, creed and language.

The following prohibitive sentence conjunct to the command sentence further explains and renders its intent explicitly distinct. Once a fraternity by recourse to Qur’ān; they should not self alienate and become different identities; and this could obviously happen when they estrange the bonding rope. (The scholars, exegetes of believers have blatantly and criminally violated this injunction.) 

Another aspect of a book related to its Thesis statement, its unity, cohesion and coherence is its principal objective. What an author intends its audience should become is the objective of the book. It is the responsibility of the would-be professional translator and interpreter to determine the principal objective because all that is mentioned therein firstly revolves around the Thesis statement but without compromising to let the objective of the book out of focus of the audience.

After critically reading the Divine Discourse and grasping the overall structure one will find the Prologue, i.e., Opening Chapter is its superb summary - synopsis which is spoken by the Reader. This Prologue is uniquely different from to which it leads Chapter 2 onwards.

The most conspicuous and striking difference between the word choice in the opening Chapter and other 113 Chapters is that in the first Chapter the sentences of declarative and prayer structures do not begin with command verb: "you say, pronounce", while it is always included whenever a declarative statement is made in the later chapters by anyone. Whenever a person makes a statement, it is referred as his expression () but when it is preceded by command verb: it clarifies that the content in the statement, in Arabic: , is not of his origin but is quoting-saying-writing the words in compliance to the command of Allah the Exalted.  All the five sentences of First chapter seem our utterances. It is understood that: a unique statement, proposition, emergence of an affair-matter-incident-information for the first time always precedes the: a relay for the auditory and visual faculty of a recipient.

We, the Believers, are the Speakers and the addressee - Listener is Allah the Exalted. It is Subject - Lord communication, and indirectly we are teaching the entire physical realm the manner and protocol of address by a subject to his Lord.

The Chapter has 3 Frames; Ayah 1-4; Ayah 5, and third frame is Ayah 6-7. In the First Frame we make statements of eternal and universal Truth. By these statements we in fact confirm the Thesis Statement of the Divine Discourse as Infallible Truth.

In the First Frame we state just two nominal sentences indicating our thought, perception, realization and recognition of facts and realities that encompass the Non-Temporal and Temporal Realms. None in the created Universes of our Sustainer Lord Ar'Reh'maan the Exalted would be more intelligent, rational and wise than us who could state that sea of information embedded in just 13 words. Praise is for Allah the Exalted Who compiled those words for our narration in the language of our guide lord Muhammad Sal'lallaa'hoalaih'wa'salam, the great amongst all that is created; and communicated it through him.

The clear/lucid/unambiguous thought, perception and understanding leads one to action and movement with absolute sincerity and conviction. We pronounced that Ar'Reh'maan is the Sustainer Lord of Worlds-all that exists including ourselves. We did not say that as its corollary what we are to Him the Exalted. Actions speak louder than one's inner understanding and sincerity. 

That is why we standing, bowing and prostrating before Him respectfully submitted: We demonstrate our sincere and exclusive allegiance and servitude with the promise that we will keep demonstrating it in times to come. We demonstrated and proved  to our Sustainer Lord that we have wholeheartedly and with full conviction accepted and followed in action the word spoken to us by the tongue and lips, and written by the right hand of our guide lord Muhammad Sal'lallaa'hoalaih'wa'salam.

In the Second Frame we state that we are following the Purpose and Intent of the Creation of entire Physical Realm and how it is sustained, as mentioned in the Discourse, reflecting that we have understood the ultimate objective, purpose and desire of creating such a gigantic universe. This is the attribute of the Men of Wisdom. (Aristotle, in his Metaphysics, defined wisdom as the understanding of causes. It is understanding, why things are a certain way as they are.):

Subservience and allegiance to anyone other than one's Creator will cost compromising one's self respect. But everything that is created is always subservient to the will and desire of its creator since the creator puts in it the built-in guidance for its each and every cell/component to function for the achievement of the purpose for which it was created. Human beings are given the freedom of choice, will and decision for the purpose that they behave rationally and submit by will, affectionately and willingly, to their Creator since they know that they were created, like everything around them, by the Creator. Therefore, like every thing around them they should also owe their allegiance and subservience to their Creator which will not cost them sacrifice of self respect and ego. When they submit to anyone else other than their Creator they in fact belittle and degrade themselves.

By submitting sincerely and exclusively in absolute allegiance and servitude to the Creator, the Sustainer Lord Ar'Reh'maan, we have also exposed to the universe that we do not compromise our self respect and ego by sharing and submitting even an iota of servitude to any one else. We submit and are proud as beings of freedom to be servants and allegiants of  the Independent, the Absolute. This reflects our elevated stature and honour to the universe around us that we are exercising our freedom affectionately and with reverence to fulfill the purpose of their and our own creation. For this purpose we need persistent help, therefore, we submit to our Sustainer Lord:

: Verb: Transitive; Imperfect; First Person; Plural; Mood: Indicative reflected by ـُ; [Form X]; Subject pronoun hidden; مصدر-اِسْتِعَانَةٌ Verbal noun. This is from Root "ع و ن". The basic perception infolded in the Root is to seek assistance in the desire of striking balance and equation to gain firmness and stability; a state which neither suffers from the "heat" of the youth nor weakness of aging. It is in between the two quite stable and tranquil state of sobriety.

Form-X verbs are Causative to do for the Self. These verbs usually carry the meaning of seeking or aspire for the meanings of its Form-I; sought to be done by the Object.

In majority of English translations the words stemming from Root "ع و ن" and Root: ن ص ر are translated by word "help, aid". Since Root: ن ص ر is not used we should avoid translating it by "help". While word "help" is most generic term and can refer to any sort of support, "to assist" is an help for something that someone could do themselves but because of the assistance is able to do that thing more efficiently, profitably, effectively, etc. Seeking support is to back up us in every step of the way. We can grow by receiving support and this growth should be part of the goal. We live in environment where there are enemies, Satan and satanic people, who can create hindrances in our personality growth. Therefore, we request the Almighty to persistently render the environment that supports and assists us in the process of elevating ourselves to achieve the goal.

In the Last Frame we earnestly pray to remain following the Objective of the communication of the Divine Discourse. [The objective of authorship of a book is determined only by those who have "chewed" and "digested" the book.]

Hereinafter, we find a linear - instant response to the individual who prayed to Allah the exalted for providing continued guidance upon the High road that keeps leading safely and stably to the destination of peace and tranquillity (Ayah 1:6-7). He is advised to frequent the Grand Qur’ān for taking guidance from it in every moment of his life, matters, events, instances for aright course of action and conduct. And out of the three categories of people he had mentioned, first are described who pursue the course for perpetual success.     
For a fresh seeker of truth, it is assured that this book is void of peeving matter and he will find it but infallible discourse of infinite reliability.

As the reader keeps studying, frame by frame, he will be amazed to find its organization and superb concatenation, consistence, and contiguity as if it is authored in response to the Prayer in its Prologue.

Let us revert to the First sentence of the Thesis Statement:

It is an elliptical sentence. Elision is a common and universal feature of languages, particularly Arabic which is pro-drop language. Taking care of elisions in the source text and incorporating it in target language text are important to correctly convey the perception embedded therein. Ellipses at the sentence level are distinguished from other types of omissions by the condition of recoverability. The basic principle of ellipsis is that nothing can be omitted unless it can be recovered. Recoverability is the essential condition put forward by Arab grammarians for ellipsis. Ellipsis is not allowed if there are no indicators to help the addressee to identify the elided elements.

Arabs dislike using larger quantity of words and like to convey voluminous information by employing minimum words. It also reflects that the Arabic language regards its listener and reader as a responsible, attentive and intelligent person who focuses his listening and perception faculties on that which is being stated. Thus the placing of words which could compromise the literary par excellence of the text along with offence to the first listeners, it is elided. The elisions are conspicuous by grammatical structures; and for the readers of later time-frame the semantics of the elided element are also mentioned at another place with repetition of key words in the elliptical sentences.

A person who is just familiar with Arabic language can instantly realize on first sight that it is an elliptical sentence when he does not see a noun in nominative case before exception particle.

Almost all available translations have not cared to take notice of its elliptical property of the sentence and have translated as if they were just four words put together. The pioneer English translators had said:

George Sale: there is no god besides the true God,

John Rodwell: There is no God but God,

I cannot believe it was for reason of poor scholarship that they translated the negation particle as "no"; second noun as "god/God"; exception particle as "but" and Allah as "God"; and naively overlooked even erroneousness of their English rendition; and unfortunately majority just copied them making it popular rendition.

Therefore, it is necessary to syntactically analyze it to understand semantics because they related two nouns with each other without realizing both have different case endings whereby they are not interrelated.

The Negation Particle: , termed as: النَّاْفِيَةُ لِلْجِنْسِ: is used to indicate categorical negation. Its particularity is that it negates the predication - attribution - ascription of something with reference to the entire genus of its subject noun. Its visual recognition is that it renders the following noun, which is its topic/subject, in accusative case but always indefinite and without tanwin - nunation; and the comment/predicate nominative; just as is done by the verb-like particle: انّ  and its sisters. What was previously known as the: مبتدأ subject/ topic of nominal sentence, it will now be called: “اسم" of "لا”, the subject noun of genus negation particle; and what was previously called: خبر the predicate, it will now be the “خير "of "لا” predicate of genus negation particle. Its predicate is mostly elided. It restricts focus on a constituent, subject in general, which immediately follows it. It occurs 123 times in Divine Discourse.

Its subject in the sentence is: , a singular accusative noun stemming from Root: ء ل ه . Ibn Faris [died 1005]stated that it signifies an icon: somebody or something widely and uncritically admired, adored and worshipped. This Root is like monocotyledon seed since it is only nominal and has no verb.

The irreducible features of this root indicate it a two-way relational domain. For its actual realization and perception, the other verbal Root is:  ع ب د: relating to semantic frame Allegiance and Servitude

The basic concept implied by the root word, 'abd, is that of acknowledging someone other than oneself as holding supremacy or enjoying over lordship and of abdicating one's freedom and independence in his favour; of relinquishing any resistance to or disobedience of him, and of surrendering oneself totally to his authority. Since slavery or bondage too are tantamount to similar status, the first sense the word conveys to the mind of any Arab is of this very factor, namely, slavery or  bondage.

Also, since the primary role of a Subject is to obey his Master and carry out his wishes, the word also carries the sense of submission and obedience. Next, a Subject not only submits himself to the will of his master physically, but mentally too he accepts his supremacy, and if he at the same time has feelings of gratitude for his kindnesses and favour, he is inclined spontaneously to go out of his way in extolling the master and in showing respect and regard for him. He expresses and demonstrates his obligation in many ways to show his deep attachment, in a manner amounting almost to worship although, obviously, this comes into play only when, in addition to physical bondage, there is mental attachment too.

What the subjects do is: and the object of act is he/it whom they consider and acknowledge as their: a deity, godhead. People can consider and acknowledge or believe in one: deity, God, sustainer Lord; or two: deities, God heads; or they can have belief in: many deities, Godheads, Sustainer lords.

The subjects, servants, allegiants are called: singular; dual; and plural: .

When a person is in the mindset of subservience, and demonstrates by physical gestures, protocols, he is called: devotee of a certain: or simultaneously to two or many: .

Thereby, the classification of Human beings, with reference to this Concept, is in five categories:

1. Atheists; those who consider and believe not in the existence of: the God;

2. Monotheists; those who believe in the existence of solitary: i.e. ; The Solitary God, the One Who maintains Singularity;

3. Dualists (Dualism-Zoroaster); those who believe in the existence of: two Gods;

4. Trinity; those who believe in the concept of Trinity - three Gods;

5. Polytheists; those who believe in the existence of: many Gods.

The third word of the sentence is: . This is [أداة حصر]: Restriction/Confining Particle, also termed الاِسْتِثْنَاءُ: Exception. Its use and meanings are quite near to core meanings of English word "Except": a grammatical word indicating the only person or thing that does not apply to a statement just made, or a fact that modifies the truth of that statement; further denotes excluding: other than; and as a transitive verb means omit: to leave out or exclude somebody or something.

What is excepted or excluded is called: الْمُسْتَثْنَى: and that from which it is excepted is called:الْمُسْتَثْنَى مِنْهُ. However, in Arabic this particle can be used in two situation where: الْمُسْتَثْنَى مِنْهُ is earlier mentioned or is not mentioned. If the sentence is negative, prohibitive or interrogative, the excepted will match case ending of thing from which exception is made,

The last word of the sentence which is excepted is: Allah the Exalted, a proper noun in Nominative case. Thus it is not excepted from the noun: which is in Accusative case, but is one of them who are considered gods worthy of uncritically admired, adorned and worshipped.

The Predicate of genus negation Particle: , which is always in Nominative case, is elided in the sentence from which Allah the Exalted is excepted as uniquely distinct from all others who are considered by people as: .

Any word, in the category of: the names - nouns attributing the sublime pre-eminence, proportion, equilibrium, admiration, grandeur, just, majesty, absoluteness, and beauty; infinitely awesome, can be a candidate to be estimated-recovered as elided Predicate of the sentence. However, we need not imagine the elided predicate, but following the advised method of study: تَدَبُّرٌ to refer to background information on a subject, we can find it when a similar statement with same words is made for the first time with slightly different grammatical structure:

Here in this sentence, what is excepted noun in the Thesis statement: is the Subject and its first Predicate is an elliptical sentence: in which the third person singular masculine pronoun is referent to subject Noun Allah the Exalted.

The second and third predicate of Subject Noun: are The Ever Living; the sole Sustainer and Administrator. (For those who are not familiar with Arabic language, let me mention that there can be many predicates for a single subject in the form of a single word, or complete sentences which will be syntactically analysed according to the same rules)

Thereby the elided predicate of sentences: and: is: , the Living. Thereby, all those, except Allah the Exalted, that are called upon by many people considering them as: many Gods are without life, inanimate objects, non-living matter, dead void of life. About all other entities respectively regarded as God, it is earlier explicitly mentioned about all of them:

This distinctive fact in relation to people's imaginative non-real gods is emphasized:

Epistemology studies the nature of knowledge, justification, and the rationality of belief. After cognition, the process of knowing, is recognition: the act of recognizing or the condition of being recognized. The recognition is a relational phenomenon; a person and object can be recognized only by knowing its relationships with others; this can be described as empirical or posteriori knowledge. How should Allah, Ar'Reh'maan the Exalted be recognized? This is the next point disclosed in the Divine Discourse:

The EXCLUSIVE recognition of Allah - Ar'Reh'maan the Exalted is described by Possessive Phrase:. The Grand Qur’ān concatenates facts in perfect sequence and chronological order. On creation by the Creator the first ever relationship that comes into existence is that of : the Sustainer Lord of all that exists which is known and is knowable; it is a relationship between the Independent and the dependant.

What is stated by a True Believer in the Opening Chapter is advised to all the audience:

The first part of the Thesis Statement which is Absolute Fact and Reality is again mentioned:

Allah the Exalted has individually discussed and refuted the misconceptions and irrational, illogical and hypothetical beliefs of the Atheists, the Dualists (Dualism-Zoroaster), of unfounded concept of Trinity and of Polytheists; and has substantiated the Absolute Fact, by referring to scientific evidence and by irrefutable arguments, the First part of the Thesis Statement:

We will next study the second part of the Thesis Statement.

The Divine Discourse, Grand Qur’ān, itself is the main evidence and argument, the Sign that proves this segment of the Thesis Statement which is discussed and argued with same force and assertion as is done about its First Segment. This will naturally cover the subjects of inimitability and par excellence coherence and unity of Grand Qur’ān.