The verse:
"And fear Allah through Whom you ask one another, and [by/and] the wombs." (An-Nisa: 1)
The two readings:
- "Wal-arhama" (accusative/nasb): majority reading — conjoined to "Allah" or object of a suppressed verb. Meaning: fear Allah and honour the ties of kinship.
- "Wal-arhami" (genitive/jarr): read by Hamza alone among the Ten. Meaning: conjoined to the pronoun in "bihi" — asking by Allah and by the wombs.
The grammatical objection:
Some grammarians like Al-Zajjaj rejected the genitive reading as grammatically weak (conjoining to an implied genitive pronoun without repeating the preposition). Defenders: Sibawayh permitted it with poetic evidence.
Scholars of readings:
A mutawatir reading cannot be rejected on grammatical grounds — Makki ibn Abi Talib: "Whoever rejects an established reading on grammatical grounds has erred — grammar is derived from Arabic, not its judge."
Question: Why did some grammarians reject Hamza's reading "wal-arhami" with genitive? What was the response of reading scholars?
Answer: They rejected it as grammatically weak (conjoining to implied genitive pronoun without repeating the preposition). Response: mutawatir cannot be rejected grammatically — grammar is derived from, not a judge over, Arabic.