prevents that entailment. With the exception, therefore, the expression no longer entails negating the excepted term at all, just as it no longer carries that entailment. His statement, “Diverting it from what it entails by virtue of being unrestricted,” is unsound. For if it were unrestricted in its entailment, there would be no exception and nothing would be diverted. If, however, it is not unrestricted but qualified by an exception, there is no unrestrictedness carrying such an entailment, no expression entailing the negation of the excepted term, and no excepted term that is negated.

Another harmful consequence of this is that most of the Quran is classified as figurative. Some have even written works on figurative usages in the Quranic readings, and they frequently describe Quranic verses as figurative. This conveys false meanings and creates misleading impressions. That is so even if the meanings they mention are correct. How much worse, then, when most of these people classify as figurative what is not figurative, deny the established meanings that Allah has affirmed, and deviate from the truth concerning Allah’s names and signs—as is found among the heretical proponents of religious innovation who make extensive use of figurative interpretation.

As for his statement:

“How can that be, when the figurative and the literal are attributes of expressions, not of contextual indicators relating to meaning?”

The reply is:

First, that is not how you yourselves proceed. Rather, you frequently use ‘literal’ and ‘figurative’ as designations for meanings, saying, “The literal meaning of this expression is such-and-such, and its figurative meaning is such-and-such.” You also say, “The literal meaning of this expression.” You thus treat it as a property of expressions at one time, and of