Mention (full form) vs. Omission (shortened form) – الذكر والحذف

Every letter in the Quran is placed deliberately. When the Quran sometimes uses the full form of a word and sometimes a shortened form (with a letter dropped), this is never arbitrary — the length of the word corresponds to the magnitude, duration, or frequency of the action it describes.

Example 1 : is His saying: ﴿تَنَزَّلُ الْمَلَائِكَةُ وَالرُّوحُ فِيهَا بِإِذْنِ رَبِّهِم مِّن كُلِّ أَمْرٍ﴾ [al-Qadr 97:4] — "The angels and the Spirit descend therein, by the permission of their Lord, with every matter."

And His saying: ﴿هَلْ أُنَبِّئُكُمْ عَلَىٰ مَن تَنَزَّلُ الشَّيَاطِينُ ۝ تَنَزَّلُ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ أَفَّاكٍ أَثِيمٍ ۝ يُلْقُونَ السَّمْعَ وَأَكْثَرُهُمْ كَاذِبُونَ﴾ [al-Shuʿarāʾ 26:221–223] — "Shall I inform you upon whom the devils descend? They descend upon every sinful liar. They pass on what is heard, and most of them are liars."

So in these verses He said تَنَزَّل (with one of the two tāʾs omitted — the original being تتنزّل).

Whereas He said: ﴿إِنَّ الَّذِينَ قَالُوا رَبُّنَا اللَّهُ ثُمَّ اسْتَقَامُوا تَتَنَزَّلُ عَلَيْهِمُ الْمَلَائِكَةُ أَلَّا تَخَافُوا وَلَا تَحْزَنُوا وَأَبْشِرُوا بِالْجَنَّةِ الَّتِي كُنتُمْ تُوعَدُونَ﴾ [Fuṣṣilat 41:30] — "Indeed, those who say, 'Our Lord is Allah,' and then remain steadfast — the angels descend upon them (saying): Do not fear and do not grieve, but receive good tidings of Paradise which you were promised."

So in the two verses of al-Qadr and al-Shuʿarāʾ, He said تَنَزَّل with one of the tāʾs omitted, but in Fuṣṣilat He said تَتَنَزَّل without any omission. That is — and Allah knows best — because the descent (التنزّل) in the verse of Fuṣṣilat is more frequent/greater than what is in the other two verses. The intent in [Fuṣṣilat] is that the angels descend upon the believers at the moment of death to give them glad tidings of Paradise¹. And this happens —

— continuously, throughout the entire year, at every moment. In every moment, an upright believer dies and the angels descend upon him to give him glad tidings of Paradise. So He gave the verb its full form and did not omit anything from it.

As for the verse of al-Shuʿarāʾ, the descent in it is less, because the devils do not descend upon every disbeliever; rather they descend upon the soothsayers (الكهنة), or upon a portion of them — who are those described by His saying: ﴿تَنَزَّلُ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ أَفَّاكٍ أَثِيمٍ ۝ يُلْقُونَ السَّمْعَ﴾. And there is no doubt that these are not many people; they are not as numerous as the first group, nor even half of them — rather they are few. So He cut from the action, saying تَنَزَّل with one of the two tāʾs omitted.

Likewise, in the verse of Sūrat al-Qadr, the descent of the angels happens only on one night in the year — Laylat al-Qadr, which is less than the descent that happens continuously upon those whom death visits. So He cut from the action.

You see, then, that He cut one of the two tāʾs from the verb in the two verses of al-Shuʿarāʾ and al-Qadr because the descent in them is less, and He did not omit from the verse of Fuṣṣilat because that one is more frequent — and Allah knows best.

More Examples will be added soon in_sha_allah.

The author, Dr. Fāḍil al-Sāmarrāʾī, is one of the most prominent contemporary scholars of Quranic linguistic miracles (الإعجاز اللغوي). In these pages he is opening his chapter on الذكر والحذف — "Mention (full form) vs. Omission (shortened form)."

What He Is Actually Trying to Say

There is a hidden iconic relationship in the Quran between the form of a word and the meaning it carries. This is what linguists call iconicity — where the structure of the language physically mirrors the structure of reality.

When you drop a letter, you literally make the word shorter, faster to pronounce, lighter on the tongue. The Quran exploits this:

• A shorter action is described with a shorter word

• A less frequent event is described with a shortened verb form

• A smaller group is referred to with a lighter (abbreviated) verb

Conversely:

• A longer, harder action keeps the full word

• A constant, ongoing event uses the full form

• A larger, more inclusive group gets the fuller verb

This is not random stylistic variation — it is a systematic pattern that the Quran follows consistently across surahs. The implication, for Dr. Sāmarrāʾī, is that this is part of the بلاغة الكلمة (the eloquence of the [individual] word) in Quranic expression — proof that the Quran's word-choice is at a level of precision that goes beyond what human composition typically achieves.