the second pronouncement of divorce takes effect whether or not the first does. Thus, making it conditional does not entail making the first conditional, since the two are independent. They regard “then” as equivalent to an interval between the utterances, thereby removing the connection both in wording and in meaning. On their view, the first clause therefore remains unrelated to the condition.

As for the words “then for their children,” this clause is connected to the first through its pronoun, through existence, and through entitlement. It cannot validly be uttered without the first clause preceding it; its meaning cannot be realized without the first; and its beneficiaries have no entitlement until after those mentioned in the first. This holds whether or not an interval between the utterances is assumed. The first clause therefore cannot be treated as unrelated to the second, such that the condition would attach to the second alone.

What is established is that the disagreement concerns divorce alone. For if someone says, “By Allah, I shall certainly strike Zayd, then ʿAmr, then Bakr—if Allah wills,” the exception applies to them all.

Thus, the statement “I have endowed this for my children, then for their children, then for their children’s children, if they are poor” provides an even stronger connection than the words “if Allah wills,” because here the pronoun establishes that connection.

The eighth point: The distinction drawn by some jurists between a conjunction indicating sequence and one that merely conjoins was made specifically in relation to exceptions. The jurist then said, “The same applies to an attribute.” When the term “attribute” is used without qualification, it often means an adjective in the technical grammatical sense: a nominal modifier that agrees with the preceding word in grammatical inflection, as when you say: