The Holy Qur’an has done this for many reasons, one of the reasons being that you have mentioned. If Bible has that style and Allah mentions himself in Bible as we occasionally and the Qur’an only said I and not we, then it would appear to the readers of the Bible that Jesus is a different God and ours is a different God. Ours was the plural one and this is some singular God who could not marry and could not bear offspring. So both the books were speaking of a different person altogether. But the Qur’an also speaks in plural and yet claims categorically that I am one.
So the question begins, if somebody is single and he still refers to himself as plural, is that acceptable in human languages? Is there any analogy to this? There is, of course. If you read the languages of the kings, of great empire particularly, there is two orders in the name of a plural king while they are single. We do that and we say that. We pass this verdict and this shall be carried. You know, things like that.
While everybody knows that those things are singular, yet they are also known to refer to themselves in singular many times. Where they mention we, there they represent the straight path. There a special emphasis is laid on a certain subject and it is made known to everyone who hears that order that it is not I alone in the sense that a single person addressing you and he himself would be responsible for the execution.
All of those who are beneath me, the entire power and might of the kingdom works at my will. So it becomes we when the question of execution comes into mind. And to indicate might, great might, we is referred to, we is adopted, the expression of we while the person is single. Similarly, it adds grandeur. Sometimes when you change a reference of a singular to a plural or a plural to a singular, a new meaning is added to that. And an awe inspiring personality comes into mind. For instance, this is the commonest practice in every language.
In English too, for instance, when you say thou, that means somebody who is not only equal to you but maybe most often they are not inferior to you. So thou turned into you which is in fact a plural word, not a singular. And gradually as the civilization advanced, thou disappeared totally, almost entirely and you remained in the market. Yet after a very long disappearance, thou tended to reappear at certain places where high respect is required.
So even Bible refers to that plural God as thou, not as you. There the cat is out of the bag. If he were really a plural, then when the human beings are told in Bible to address him, they should have addressed him as you, not as thou. But not as in a single instance he is addressed as you. Just the singular thou because there the normal practice has been changed to add grandeur to his personality. To tell that you are different from everybody else. Yet you are thou and not you. Similarly, out of love, some husbands would call their wives as thou, that is to say in Urdu.
Now I am transferring to Urdu because in Urdu thou stands for too and you stands for aap. So normally it is a common behavior that people address each other with aap. But sometimes when you love somebody too much, instead of aap, not out of disrespect, but out of love, you change your style and start addressing him as thou, as tu. So similarly, the Muslims out of love, address Ahmad Sallallahu Alehiwassallaam as thou. In poetry this is most often adopted.
In oratory, when you are addressing Huzoor-e-Akbar Sallallahu Alehiwassallaam, you never do that normally as thou. But in certain context, when his grandeur is to emphasize, when your love is to emphasize, suddenly instead of saying aap, you begin to say address him as thou. So they are figures of speeches. Figures of speech in fact, all of them. And they should not be misunderstood. Every religion has adopted the same style. So has Islam. But Islam is very clear minded about it. Islam makes it very clear that don’t misunderstand. We address to ourselves as we, yet we are one and not two or three. That has been manifestly made clear in Islam.
But unfortunately, in the earlier books, although we believe it was made clear, but later people, people of later ages, later it was interpolated and added things and subtracted things and played havoc with their own books.
