In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
{Alif, Lam, Ra. These are the verses of the clear Book}1. As for His saying [Alif, Lam, Ra]: it is among the names of the Name, as is [Alif, Lam, Mim] and the like among the beginnings of the surahs and verses. They are those which the Name manifested in the stations; among them with Pharaoh: the staff, the white hand, the lice, the frogs, the blood, the locusts, the eclipse, and the increase of the Nile until it flooded the lands. These are what God mentioned in His Mighty Book, saying: {And We had certainly given Moses nine manifest signs, so ask the Children of Israel [about] when he came to them and Pharaoh said to him, "Indeed I think, O Moses, that you are affected by magic"}2. In the Messianic Cycle, it was the healing of the blind and leper and the reviving of the dead. In the Hashemite Cycle: the moving of the clouds and the cutting of iron. These verses and the address here refer to Zayd ibn Haritha, the Monbite.
{Indeed, We have sent it down as an Arabic Quran that you might understand}3. The "sending down" is the Speech; it was inward and became manifest, it was concealed and became broadcast, so the elite and the commoners heard it. "Arabic" because He did not speak in Arabic except in this Cycle alone; as for all the Cycles before it in the eras and cycles, He spoke in all other languages.
{We relate to you the best of stories in what We have revealed to you of this Quran although you were, before it, among the unaware}4. The "Revelation" here was from the Name to the Monbite without intermediary. His saying: {although you were, before it, among the unaware}5 means: regarding what you did not hear of it in the pre-eternity of the former cycles.