Analogous to this in certain respects are “lordship and servitude.” Although their various instances share the basic meanings of lordship and servitude, when He says:

“in the Lord of all worlds,”

“the Lord of Moses and Aaron,”

His lordship over Moses and Aaron has a particular distinction beyond His general lordship over creation. For whoever Allah has granted greater perfection than others, He has governed and nurtured more perfectly than others.

Likewise are His words:

“A spring from which Allah’s servants drink, making it flow abundantly,”

and:

“Glory be to Him who took His servant by night.”

For “servant” sometimes means one held in subjection, and thus includes all creation, as in His words:

“There is none in the heavens and the earth but will come to the Most Merciful as a servant.”

At other times it means a worshipper, and thus has a restricted scope. These worshippers themselves differ: whoever is more devoted in knowledge and spiritual condition has more perfect servitude. Accordingly, the attribution to Allah is more perfect in his case, although it is literal in every instance.

Some people call expressions of this kind “graded terms,” because the hearer is uncertain whether they are univocal terms or terms that share only their wording. Those who have examined the matter rigorously know that they do not fall outside the category of univocal terms, since whoever established the language assigned the expression to the shared meaning. Even if they constitute a distinct subclass of univocal terms, there is no harm in giving them a separate designation.

Whoever knows that “being with” is attributed to every kind of created being—like the attribution of