you classify as figurative you also classify as literal, and that anyone who distinguishes between the two on the basis of unqualified and qualified usage speaks like someone who has no clear conception of what he is saying, much less the ability to express it. Expression depends upon conception; whoever has no conception of what he is saying says nothing that is not mistaken.

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As for his second argument, he says:

“How can that be, when people throughout the ages have continually transmitted, in their speech and writings, from those who established linguistic conventions, the designation of this as literal and that as figurative?”

The response is that this is known with certainty to be false. No one has ever transmitted from those who established linguistic conventions that they said, “This is literal and that is figurative.” It is self-evident that they never did this, nor did anyone who transmitted their language report it from them. Indeed, no one has even reported this from the Companions who explained the Quran, clarified its meanings, and explained what it indicates in each passage. None of them said, “This expression is literal and that is figurative,” or anything resembling it: neither Ibn Mas'ūd and his companions, nor Ibn 'Abbās and his companions, nor Zayd ibn Thābit and his companions, nor those who came after them; neither Mujāhid, Sa'īd ibn Jubayr, 'Ikrimah, al-Dahhāk, Tāwūs, al-Suddī, Qatādah, nor anyone else among them; nor any of the imams of jurisprudence, such as the imams