occur except to the occasional individual, and which perhaps never occurred to the founder, rather than as guarding against a possibility present in the mind of every speaker, or most speakers, ever since Allah taught Adam expression?

Another argument is that, if the founder intended by the words “leaving no child” to exclude the possibility of a lapse in this case, those words can also serve to exclude the possibility of a lapse in the other cases. In those cases, this possibility would be excluded by having the share of anyone who dies leaving a child pass to his child. This preserves the qualification from being disregarded while preventing a lapse in both cases. Clearly, interpreting the founder’s words in this way is better than rendering them ineffectual and incomplete.

Another argument is that this purpose would have been fully achieved had he said, “Provided that, if any of them dies.” Adding words while diminishing the meaning is an error that must not be attributed to a speaker’s words when they admit a sound interpretation, as they do here.

Another argument is that this reasoning rests on the assumption that his words, “For my children, then for their children,” entail the succession of one group as a whole to another group as a whole. This implication, however, depends on the wording not being joined to anything that qualifies it. If it is joined to wording that qualifies it and entails succession on an individual basis—such as, “Provided that, if any of them dies leaving a child, his share shall pass to his child,” or similar expressions—this implication would no longer hold