after not having existed, or having a beginning, these are comparable to its being past, being followed by nonexistence, and ceasing to exist after having existed. This entails that each of these descriptions applies to each individual instance of what comes into being or passes away.

But to say that the kind comprising things that pass away has ceased, so that nothing passes away thereafter, or that the kind comprising things that come into being is discontinuous, so that nothing came into being before these particular things—this is another matter.

A judgment about each individual is different from a judgment about the aggregate considered as a whole, whether in negation or affirmation. In prohibitions, for example, we distinguish between saying, “Do not eat this or that,” and saying, “Do not eat fish and drink milk together.” The first prohibits each separately, whereas the second prohibits their combination.

The same applies when someone says, “I struck neither this one nor that one,” or, “I did not strike it,” intending to deny having struck both together.

For this reason, jurists have disagreed about someone who swears not to do something but then does part of it—for example, someone who swears, “I will not eat the loaf,” but then eats part of it. They have not disagreed, however, that if he intended eating the whole loaf, he does not break his oath by eating part of it.

This is like the saying of Allah Most High:

“and that you take two sisters simultaneously [in marriage]” [al-Nisā’: 23],

and the Prophet’s prohibition—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—against marrying a woman while also married to her paternal or maternal aunt. What is prohibited is being married to both together. Marriage to either woman alone is permissible, but being married to both together is not.