الف

Core meaning

To put together: to unite what was separated, hostile cores as well as scattered clouds. The same root gives the number thousand, which the text uses without linking it to this gesture.

Uses

1. أَلَّفَ بَيْنَ, يُؤَلِّفُ بَيْنَهُ → "to reconcile", "to join together" : to bind together beings or things that were divided.

   • «وَلَٰكِنَّ ٱللَّهَ أَلَّفَ بَيْنَهُمْ» — "but it is God who reconciled them" (8:63)
   • «ثُمَّ يُؤَلِّفُ بَيْنَهُۥ» — "then joins them together" (24:43)

2. ٱلْمُؤَلَّفَةِ قُلُوبُهُمْ → "those whose cores have been united" : those who have been brought close, and to whom a share of the acts of charity falls.

   • «وَٱلْمُؤَلَّفَةِ قُلُوبُهُمْ» — "those whose cores have been united" (9:60)

3. إِيلَٰف → "harmony" : an accord kept over time, here that of a people with its journeys.

   • «لِإِيلَٰفِ قُرَيْشٍ» — "For the harmony of the Quraysh" (106:1)

4. أَلْف, أَلْفَيْنِ, ءَالَٰف, أُلُوف → "a thousand", "two thousand", "thousands" : the number, for a length of time, a troop or a crowd.

   • «وَإِنَّ يَوْمًا عِندَ رَبِّكَ كَأَلْفِ سَنَةٍۢ مِّمَّا تَعُدُّونَ» — "And indeed, a day with your Guardian is like a thousand years of those you number" (22:47)
   • «بِثَلَٰثَةِ ءَالَٰفٍۢ مِّنَ ٱلْمَلَٰٓئِكَةِ» — "with three thousand Agents" (3:124)

Evidence from the text

The gesture of uniting is given with its measure in 8:63: spending all that is on the earth would not have sufficed to reconcile their cores, "but it is God who reconciled them". Reconciliation makes brothers of enemies (3:103); in nature, the same verb states the clouds driven and then joined into a mass from which the shower comes (24:43). The harmony of 106:1-2 holds together a people and its journeys of winter and summer.

The number thousand counts lengths of time (2:96, 22:47, 29:14, 32:5, 70:4, 97:3), troops (3:124-125, 8:9, 8:65-66) and crowds (2:243, 37:147). Its uses never touch those of the first meaning: the text does not link the two.

Distinctions

• جمع — to bring together: to bring into one place, whereas أَلَّفَ binds together what was divided

See also

قلب (the core) · اخو (brothers)