single out the females and exclude them from the endowment—when the founder has included them through the apparent meaning of his wording—unless there is evidence warranting this. Ibn Zarb’s abandoning this position for the one I have reported from him, on account of the narration he cited, is a manifest error. That narration concerns someone who established an endowment for his children and his children’s children. This is a different question from the one concerning which he retracted his answer. The narration is to be understood as we have explained: people believe that the word “children” applies only to males, not females. Indeed, only scholars with specialized knowledge recognize that the word encompasses both males and females. Yet it cannot be said that anyone is unaware that a plural pronoun refers to everyone mentioned. Rather, many people believe that it cannot properly refer to only some of them. Many scholars have adopted this view, saying that Quranic verses whose general scope is restricted by other verses are abrogated by those verses, rather than explained by them.

There is another consideration: Mālik may have held that the expression “children’s children,” when used without qualification, applies only to those descendants whose lineage is traced back to him, since they are specifically affiliated with him. Those whose lineage is not traced back to him are not specifically affiliated with him, but rather with the person to whom their lineage is traced. No one, however, can maintain that a plural pronoun, used without qualification, refers to only some of those mentioned. It is taken to refer to some of them only when evidence establishes that it cannot refer to them all. An example is the saying of Allah, Mighty and Majestic:

“O company of jinn and mankind, did there not come to you messengers from among you, relating to you My verses?” [al-Anʿām: 130]

For we know that by “messengers from among you,” He means mankind, not the jinn, since He, Exalted is He, did not send a messenger from among the jinn. This is clear.

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If he repeated the reference to successive generations of descendants, daughters’ children would be included down to the generation specified by the founder, according to the position adopted by the shaykhs, contrary to the position of Mālik—may Allah have mercy on him—as we have explained.