Likewise, someone who wishes to eat food and wear a garment, without intending any particular food or garment, cannot eat or dress unless he obtains particular food and a particular garment, with a particular act of will and a particular conception relating to them. Yet he may intend the particular thing simply because it is available and within his power to obtain. If something else became available, it would serve in its place. He has no preference for one over the other except that it is what has become available and what he can obtain. Here, then, his ability is what determines the particular object of his will.

Likewise, someone who intends to give zakat to the general categories Allah has mentioned in His Book, without having any particular individual in mind, gives to those he knows belong to these categories, and to whomever he can.

If someone intends a particular individual, that individual is not singled out until he has a particular conception and a particular act of will. But this singling out results from his particular knowledge and particular ability. It is not that his initial intention prompted him to pay zakat and distribute it among the categories mentioned in the Quran and was therefore an intention directed at a particular individual.

Likewise, someone who intends to purify himself as Allah has commanded intends to purify himself with water, whatever water it may be. This is a universal intention. Yet he can purify himself only with particular water, of which he forms a particular conception and with which he has a particular intention to purify himself.

The same applies to someone who intends to free a slave as an expiation incumbent upon him, someone whose aim is to marry a woman under his guardianship to a suitable match, and someone who intends to buy food from