or when one says, ‘a thousand less fifty.’ Their meaning thus changes according to whether they are used without qualification or with qualification.

Moreover, in neither case has the particular expression been used in a sense other than that in which it was originally used. When the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“The head of the matter is Islam, its pillar is prayer, and the summit of its hump is jihad in the cause of Allah,”

and said:

“Is it anything but what their tongues reap that casts people into the Fire on their noses?”

he annexed ‘head’ to ‘the matter’; this expression was not used to refer to the head of a living creature. Likewise, when people speak of ‘the head of wealth,’ meaning capital, and say that the two partners divide whatever remains beyond the capital, and that the investment manager is entitled to his share of the profit after the capital has been accounted for, the expression ‘the head of wealth’ has not been used to refer to the head of a living creature. The same applies to ‘the head of the spring,’ whether it is a common noun or a proper name established through predominant usage.

Furthermore, there are two answers to their statement that these words, when used without qualification, refer to the bodily organs of living creatures. The first is that an expression is never used entirely without qualification; it is always qualified. For it becomes qualified only after it has been linked and combined with other words, whether in a nominal or verbal sentence, uttered by a known speaker whose customary manner of speaking is familiar. These are qualifications through which the intended meaning becomes clear.