and similar qualifiers, which do restrict meaning; so do certain kinds of conjunction. This, however, is not the place to discuss that distinction in detail. Hence, in their discussions of acknowledgments, divorce, and contracts, jurists distinguish between conjunctions that alter the preceding meaning and those that do not.

Anyone who seeks to assign a valid meaning to an utterance before it is complete must regard the beginning of the declaration of Allah’s oneness as disbelief and its ending as faith, and hold that the person uttering it has disbelieved and then believed. We seek refuge in Allah from such folly.

It has, indeed, been related that someone asked, “What declaration begins with disbelief and ends with faith?” When asked, “What is it?” he replied, “The declaration of pure faith.” I say: He meant that its beginning would constitute disbelief if the speaker stopped there. He did not mean that it constitutes disbelief when joined to the exception; had he meant that, he would have committed disbelief.

Hence, scholars of precise understanding have said, “Making an exception means speaking of what remains after the excepted portion is excluded.”

Some have mistakenly supposed that, when someone says, “A thousand except fifty,” the word “thousand” is used figuratively, because it is being used for something other than its assigned meaning: it denotes the number in its entirety, whereas the speaker did not intend that.

The reply is: That is its assigned meaning when it stands alone, without an attached qualification; that condition no longer holds here.

Furthermore, the meaning here is understood only from the complete expression, “A thousand except fifty,” not from “thousand” alone. Thus, these three terms together signify nine hundred and fifty. This is the misconception underlying the view that a general expression restricted by an attached qualification is figurative, just as many people regard a general expression restricted by a separate qualification as figurative.