“I have endowed this for my children, then for the upright poor.” Here, it is quite plausible that the final adjective qualifies only the last clause. Our case, however, concerns conditions governing legal effect. These are closer to explicit conditional clauses than to exceptions, even if they may be called attributes in terms of their meaning.

The evidence that this is what he intended is his statement:

“If the conjunction is ‘and,’ with no intervening separation, al-Shāfiʿī’s position is that the exception applies to all the clauses. The same applies to an attribute.”

It is thus clear that he intended to identify this as al-Shāfiʿī’s position, alluding to Abū Hanīfa’s disagreement, since the latter applies it only to the final clause. Yet Abū Hanīfa says this only regarding exceptions and adjectival modifiers; he does not say it regarding conditions or attributes that function as conditions. There are therefore four categories here:

First: An exception introduced by the particle “except” following several clauses. The disagreement concerning this is well known.

Second: An exception introduced by conditional particles. Here, the exception applies to all the clauses.

Third: Adjectival modifiers of the noun they describe, similar constructions (1), and explanatory apposition. These are modifiers that restrict the scope of the preceding nouns, so they are equivalent to exceptions.

Fourth: Conditions conveyed in meaning through a preposition, as in the expression “on condition that he…”; or “you stipulate that he do so”; or through conjunctions, as in the expression “and among its conditions is such-and-such”