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8introduction by muhammad shahrural-kit§b and qur"§n in this verse express an absolutely identical meaning,ignoring the fact that both terms possess two entirely differentlinguistic forms and etymologies and that they are linked by theconjunction and (-wa), indicating an addition (+) and not an equation(=). If both words were synonymous one of the two would be superfluousand the verse could, for example, stop earlier: ‘These are theverses of al-kit§b’. Or the two words could be swapped around: ‘Theseare the verses of a qur"§n and al-kit§b’. This however—in both cases—would change the meaning of the verse significantly. The fact thatthe verse contains both words and connects them with the conjunctionwa- cannot be explained away by the argument that they aresynonymous and cannot be justified only by a reference to poeticlicence imposed by the rhyme or metre of the verse. Assessed assingle, isolated words (that is, in isolation from grammatical andsyntactic relations) the two terms do share a similar semantic fieldand can be used in some instances of everyday speech as synonyms.But the point is that as soon as these two isolated words have beeninserted into the grammatical and syntactical construction of a concreteverse (15:1), connected by the conjunction wa-, they do meantwo different things and the one cannot be substituted by the other.This underlines the argument, held by the majority of modern linguists,that perfect synonymity is impossible in concrete syntactic andgrammatical relations of human speech (and this is different fromwords in isolation).If there are terms, for example, the fifty or more words in Arabicfor a she-camel, which are treated as synonyms (that is, all referringto the same semantic core, i.e., the she-camel), we should not regardthis as an argument against nonsynonymity. Firstly, it shows thateveryday life of nomadic Arab tribes demanded that nomads communicatedthe subtlest differences of the appearance of a she-camelwith the help of a variety of different terms. To substitute one withanother would have meant a loss of precision and clarity and couldhave led to potentially serious misunderstandings. Secondly, it doesnot disprove our point that these fifty or more words for she-camelare synonymous only because they are isolated words, for exampleas they appear on a list of terms for she-camel or as they are listedin a dictionary. If they enter into the construction of a phrase orsentence they become part of a syntactical pattern whereby they losetheir synonymity. This applies to all the words in the Book which wedo not read as isolated words but always in a concrete syntactical