and failure of the converse relationship is less problematic than failure of consistent operation. If the two classes differ with respect to meat, bones, milk, and hair, why may they not differ with respect to dung and urine? This connection is clearer: each of these substances is either a part of the animal or something produced by it, and therefore follows the ruling governing the rest, by analogy between a part and the whole.

If it is said:

“This is contradicted by the human being: he is ritually pure, his milk is pure, and so too are his other bodily fluids and waste products. Yet his feces and urine are among the foulest impurities. Thus, in his case, a distinction exists between urine and other substances.”

We reply:

Know that human beings differ from other animals in this matter in both directions. What is required, therefore, is to draw analogies between animals, placing them in one category distinct from human beings, and to place human beings in a separate category. Do you not see that, according to the preferred view, a human being does not become ritually impure upon death, whereas animals do? Yet human urine is more severely impure than theirs.

Do you not see that the prohibition against consuming human beings differs from the prohibition against consuming other animals, owing to the dignity and inviolability of humankind? Thus, the prohibition includes disbelievers as well as others, and it is not even permissible to tan human skin, although human urine is more severely and gravely impure. These and other considerations show that human urine differs from other human waste products more markedly than animal urine differs from their other waste products, whether because of the prevalence of