receive close attention if we are to understand speakers’ words, explain and interpret them, and discern their intended meaning. A single language encompasses its original usage as well as various later conventions, both specialized and general. Someone accustomed to communicating according to certain conventions may assume that these are the conventions of the language’s speakers themselves. He then interprets their words accordingly and falls into grave error. It has been said: “Most disagreement among rational people arises from terms having more than one meaning.”

We must therefore know, in particular, the language in which the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—addressed people, for this is the means of understanding his words and their meaning. There are even differences between the language of Quraysh and that of other Arabs, and anyone unfamiliar with these may misunderstand.

This being so, there is no known usage in the language of the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—or, indeed, in any other form of Arabic, of calling every particular real entity a “person,” as some people do according to their specialized convention, as noted above. Rather, it is self-evident from their language that this is incorrect. It would entail calling every particular thing to which a judgment applies a “person,” even every particular accident, whether a taste, a color, or a smell. This is unquestionably false.