slaves as alternatives, so whichever slave he frees suffices. Likewise, saying “He went out” indicates that an act of going out occurred. It may have been brief or prolonged, and he may have been riding or walking. Even so, the alternatives encompassed are only instances of going out possible for Zayd. But to claim that this expression entails the universal inclusion of everything in existence called “going out,” though not collectively—no one would say this unless his understanding were corrupted and he were closer to a beast. We should presume that Ibn Jinnī would not say this.
Moreover, this meaning exists in all other languages. Would any rational person say that the speakers of every language who use verbal sentences—which every nation must use—originally assigned those sentences to encompass every kind of that action existing in the world, and that using them for particular instances departs from the meaning for which the expression was originally assigned?
Rather, this demonstrates the unsoundness of the very basis of the doctrine of figurative usage, if it leads to such nonsense being uttered at all and then made into a disputed question included in works on the principles of jurisprudence.
Thus, whoever among those who deny figurative usage in the Quran says: “We do not call anything in the Quran, or in comparable Arabic speech, figurative. We call figurative only what exceeds the bounds of moderation, such as the exaggeration found in poets’ praise and invective