that is newly introduced, even if it involved no harm. If it entails harmful consequences, it ought to be abandoned even if the distinction were intelligible. How much more so when the distinction is unintelligible, entails religious harms, and introduces an innovation into the language! It is therefore invalid rationally, religiously, and linguistically. As for reason, the two cannot be distinguished on rational grounds. As for religion, it entails harms that the Sharia requires us to eliminate. As for language, changing established linguistic conventions brings no overriding benefit; rather, it entails harm.

If it is asked, “What are these harms?” the answer is:

Among these harms is that the term “figurative,” as opposed to “literal”—whether considered an attribute of expressions or of usage—conveys and suggests that figurative usage is inferior to literal usage, especially since one of the signs of figurative usage is that it can validly be negated. Thus, when someone says, “Allah Most High is neither Merciful nor Most Merciful in a literal sense, but only figuratively”—among other such statements they make about many of His names and attributes—and says that “There is no deity worthy of worship except Allah” is figurative rather than literal, as this al-Āmidī maintained in stating that a general expression whose scope has been restricted is figurative, and then presented the following objection on behalf of his opponent:

“If it is objected: ‘If someone were to say, “There is no god,” as a complete, unqualified statement, it would be disbelief. But if it were accompanied by the exception, namely, “except Allah,” it would be faith. Likewise, if a man said to his wife, “You are divorced,” she would be divorced with immediate effect. But if this were accompanied by a condition, namely, “if you enter the house,” it would be