And if you interpret it as the wording alone, you must affirm that this wording has a meaning; otherwise, words without meaning are mere babble. If there is a meaning denoted by the terms “rebuke” and “prohibition,” that meaning must be of the same kind as hatred, aversion, and the like. For if the term “rebuke” does not include this, no prohibition can be understood from it at all. If this is so, what the term “rebuke” denotes necessarily entails the meaning of jealousy, namely hatred, abhorrence, and aversion toward that which arouses jealousy. Thus, the effect he takes the term “jealousy” to mean necessarily entails its cause and cannot exist without it. If denying jealousy entails affirming it, then it becomes clear that denying it is impossible.

The seventh response is that he said, “No one is more jealous than Allah,” and, “Allah is more jealous than I am.” The comparative and superlative form requires either that both share the quality denoted by the word, with one possessing it to a higher degree, or that this quality belongs exclusively to the one described as greater. It cannot belong exclusively to the one described as lesser. This requires that Allah be described as possessing jealousy in either case.

Furthermore, comparison expressed through this form is not merely a matter of wording. Nor can the word have two meanings and apply to both through mere homonymy