The Qur'anic "Thumma": A Genealogical Study
Salam Khaleel Alwan
Iraqi Ministry of Education.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.25130/jls.4.2.9
Keywords: Thumma, some, meaning, word, used
Abstract
The word in Arabic is classified into three types: nouns, verbs and functional words. The last type is classified into structural and meaningful. The conjunction ثم "thumma" is related to the meaningful functional words. It has multiple uses in the Glorious Qur'an in which it is used for 345 times distributed on 70 Suras. Those who are concerned with principles of jurisprudence studied the meanings of the conjunction "thumma". They agreed that it is used for delaying, metaphorically meaning "waw" 'and', pure conjunction, giving the meaning of (al-faa') which is rare in the Glorious Qur'an, inception, and separating what precedes it from what follows. According to these different meanings, those who are concerned with philology differed in many rules. For example, in the Ayah of (Al-Ifadhah), some consider that "thumma" is used for the arrangement; some others say that it is used for differentiation; and some others say that "thumma" has the same meaning of "Al-Waw". Also, in the Ayah of Al-Dhihar, they differed in determining the time for paying al-kaffarah whether it is directly paid after al-dhihar or latter on. Concerning divorce, they also have different opinions because the conjunction "thumma" which appears in the Glorious Ayah that talks about divorce. Accordingly, some say that the divorce is not considerable before the completion of marriage and some others say that it is considered as full divorce.
