leaving it as it stands, with nothing added to it.

This holds whether the speaker’s refraining from adding anything is regarded as something positive or as a mere absence. Most people maintain that refraining is something positive that subsists in the person who refrains, whereas Abū Hāshim and a group of others hold that it is a mere absence. They are called the Dhimmiyya because they maintain that a person is blameworthy for what he has not done. On either view, the speaker intends to convey meaning through the expression alone, not through the expression together with the meaning. Its standing alone is a condition of its signification, and this condition is absent when another expression accompanies it.

The usual pattern in language is that adding qualifying expressions restricts the scope of the expression standing alone. Hence the saying, “An addition to the definition restricts what is defined.” The more qualifications a general expression receives, the narrower its meaning becomes. Thus, “human being” and “animal” have broader meanings than “Arab human being” and “rational animal,” respectively.

The fifth argument: These expressions cannot be said to be literal in these applications, because they are unanimously acknowledged to be literal in other applications. The word “lion” is literal when applied to the beast of prey, and “donkey” when applied to the animal; “back,” “loins,” “shin,” and “chest” are literal when applied to the corresponding bodily parts of animals. If these expressions were literal in the applications mentioned, each expression would be equivocal. Were it equivocal, one of its meanings rather than another would not immediately come to mind when it was used without qualification, since the meanings would necessarily be equal in their literal signification.