speech is to convey meaning in actual use. If a prior assignment of meaning is assumed, it serves as a means and a preliminary to that end. Thus, an expression cannot be deemed neither unequivocal nor apparent merely because its original designation admits two meanings, when in actual use it unequivocally conveys one of them.

It therefore becomes clear that the labels and judgments he set out in those categories are not as he claimed. For he regarded as unequivocal neither an expression assigned to one meaning but admitting another, nor an expression assigned alternatively to two meanings—that is, a homonym—even though in ordinary discourse such an expression generally conveys the intended meaning unequivocally, admitting no other. Examples include Allah’s words:

“You are the best nation brought forth for mankind.”
[Āl ʿImrān 110]

And His words:

“but communities like yourselves.”
[Al-Anʿām 38]

And His words:

“Thus We have sent you to a community before which other communities have passed away.”
[Al-Raʿd 30]

And His words:

“That was a community which has passed away.”
[Al-Baqarah 134]

And the Prophet’s words, may Allah bless him and grant him peace:

“Were dogs not a community among communities, I would have ordered that they be killed. So kill every completely black dog among them.”

In these and similar statements, the word ummah (community) is unequivocal in denoting