holds true of its like, and that one is like one, just as it is known that things equal to the same thing are equal to one another. Likeness and difference in quality or quantity may be known through internal and external sense perception, while the knowledge that two like things are equal, and that what is more numerous and larger is greater and weightier, is self-evident to reason.

The same applies to an inference composed of propositions about particulars: for example, knowing that Zayd is Amr’s brother and Amr is Bakr’s brother, and therefore Zayd is Bakr’s brother. Likewise, knowing that Abū Bakr is superior to Umar, and Umar is superior to Uthmān and Alī, and therefore Abū Bakr is superior to Uthmān and Alī. Or that Medina is superior to Jerusalem, and pilgrimage to Medina is not obligatory, so no pilgrimage is made to Jerusalem. Or that the Messenger’s grave—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—is the finest of graves, yet touching or kissing it is not prescribed; therefore, touching or kissing the graves of so-and-so, so-and-so, and so-and-so is not prescribed.

The world abounds in such inferences. This is more effective in establishing what holds true of a particular than mentioning the general. A specific name identifies a particular more effectively than a general name does, even though the general name encompasses other things that the specific name does not.

It is thus clear that far more particulars are known through sensory perception, analogical inference, and inferences involving particulars than are known through subsumptive syllogisms. Thus, if the subsumptive syllogism—as they have formulated it—does not yield knowledge of universals, as explained above, and is not needed for knowledge of particulars