is correct if he means that the meaning which is universal in the mind should itself exist in external reality. But this is not what is intended, for what is in the mind is an attribute inhering in it and cannot exist outside it. Rather, what is intended is that something corresponding to it should exist externally, such that the universal mental meaning applies to it. Thus one says, “I have done what I had in mind,” just as Allah Most High said:

“Except for a need in Jacob’s soul, which he satisfied.” Yūsuf 68

What was in his soul was his conception of that need and his intention to fulfil it. His satisfying it consisted in carrying out what he had conceived and intended: instructing them, as he did, to enter through separate gates. Such expressions are common in people’s speech.

Another example is the statement of ʿUmar ibn al-Khattāb:

“I had prepared in my mind a speech that I intended to deliver.”

One also says, “I had intended to perform Hajj, and I have now done what I had in mind.”

The point here is that al-Āmidī acknowledges that the existence of a universal meaning in concrete reality is inconceivable; otherwise, it would exist in its particular instances. He said:

“This would entail confining what can be shared by many within what cannot be so shared, which is impossible.”

It is as he says. For if he says, “The unrestricted meaning is part of the determinate instance, and the universal exists in the particular instance,” he has made the universal a part of the particular instance, and a part of a thing is confined within it.

Then they say: “It is part of this