Should one allow (1) that—namely, that disparate realities may be characterized by a single existence—then it would likewise be permissible to maintain that one single attribute could itself be a plurality of realities; otherwise the doctrine collapses.

We have declared this position weak because the claim that different realities share one existence is not the same as saying that a single attribute is, in and of itself, multiple realities. The difference between an attribute belonging to disparate realities and the attribute itself being disparate realities is perfectly evident. What he said would hold only if it were first established that the various realities are described by one existence and, further, that this existence which subsists externally is itself many disparate realities—something no rational person would concede.

These people even assert that the very act of directive speech (ṭalab) is identical with declarative speech (khabar), thereby collapsing two distinct realities into a single entity—which is impossible.

And if it is said (2) that they possess one existence in addition to their essences, the absurdity of treating the two realities as one and the same is self-evident.

To clarify further: disparate realities are like disparate accidents. Even if one were to say that their existence is something added (3) to their essences and that this existence might be numerically one, no intelligent person would affirm that the realities themselves are one and the same.

The seventy-third angle:
It may be said: whenever uncertainty persists, the verdict must be impossibility. (4) Hence we assert that it is impossible for two distinct realities to share a single existence inhering in them, just as it is impossible for them to share a single accident inhering in them. For the ḥāl—that is, existence—which is said to inhere in realities as something added to their essences, is dependent upon those realities