Praise be to Allah! In Arabic pronouns can be singular, dual or plural and pronouns are of course also third person, second person and first person. So, like any language, a “Being” is referred by his name or represented by a pronoun. Let us understand, which pronouns Allah has used to relate to Him in the Quran.

• He – Third person Singular
• You – Second person Singular
• I – First person Singular
• We – First person Plural


So, we see that the only plural used to relate to Allah in the Quran is “We” in first person and no plural or dual form is used in the third and second person.

To comprehend this, we need to understand that language should not be reduced to logic. In other words, the way you study mathematics or science, it is in very precise terms, but language isn't like that. Language is organic and fluid and words are used to communicate different kinds of meanings. Let us take an example from today’s younger generation. We know what the word “cool” or “hot” means, but if someone comes out of a basketball game and says, that was “hot”, it does not mean that the temperature was hot. We cannot take the literal meaning of the word in this context. Similarly, we cannot take the literal plural meaning of “We” in this context.

So now let us analyze, how the word “We” is used in the Quran. Predominantly it is used to depict Allah’s royalty. This usage was true of ancient languages. A king would speak and if he's declaring something formal, he wouldn't say I have declared, he would say thus “We” have declared. So, it's associated with royalty, but in the Quran it’s a little more subtle and beautiful than that. Allah’s uses the term “We” when He is addressing about:

• Providing to His creation
• His Kingdom
• His Creative Powers

But what’s remarkable is that whenever Allah uses the word "We" in the Quran for Allah, right before or right after in the same passage, you will find a singular word for Him like the word "Rabb" which means master or the word "Ilah" which means the One to be worshiped and obeyed, the word Ilah-un- Wahid and words like “Allah”. One of these singular words used explicitly right before or right after ensures that the reader is never left to even imagine if this is talking about more than One God. Moreover, there are numerous Ayahs in the Quran, where singular is explicitly used.

Thus, the word “We” used in Quran is a feature of literary style in Arabic that Allah refers to Himself by the pronoun Nahnu (we) for respect and glorification and not to denote plurality of numbers. It is imperative to note that, Allah never refers to Himself by use of the dual, because the plural “We” refers to the respect that He deserves, and may refer to His names and attributes, whereas the dual refers to a specific number (and nothing else), and He is far above that. And Allah knows best.