What is the difference in the phrase “The first thing Allah created was the Pen” when “first” is in the accusative case versus the nominative case, and what are the implications of this?
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Question:
He says: Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success, I hope you will clarify for us the difference between the phrase “The first thing Allah created was the Pen” when “first” is in the accusative case versus the nominative case, and what are the implications of this according to the philosophers?
Answer:
In the first case, “first” becomes the subject of the sentence. As for “first” in the sense of a temporal adverb, it means that when Allah created the intellect, He addressed it; when He created it, He spoke to it. It does not mean that the intellect was the first of the created things, but rather that from the very first thing He created, He addressed it with this speech. This is a great difference. Yes.
He says: Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success, I hope you will clarify for us the difference between the phrase “The first thing Allah created was the Pen” when “first” is in the accusative case versus the nominative case, and what are the implications of this according to the philosophers?
Answer:
In the first case, “first” becomes the subject of the sentence. As for “first” in the sense of a temporal adverb, it means that when Allah created the intellect, He addressed it; when He created it, He spoke to it. It does not mean that the intellect was the first of the created things, but rather that from the very first thing He created, He addressed it with this speech. This is a great difference. Yes.
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، [680 /1350] ما الفرق في قول« أول ما خلق الله القلم »، بالنصب وبالرفع، وما الذي يترتب على ذلك؟ — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.