Third: the unqualified meaning common to both.

Using a syllogism based on a common meaning to negate the first is mistaken, as is using it to affirm the second. Using it to affirm the third, however, requires the intellect to recognize that the common, universal meaning is established. This is the foundation of syllogistic reasoning and proof. Unless the intellect knows that this is established—either independently or through another syllogism—the syllogism cannot be sound.

Likewise, in their affirmative knowledge, they offer only unqualified, broadly stated meanings: existence, necessary existence, or His being a Lord, a Maker, the First, a Principle, or eternally existent, and similar universal meanings. These do not disclose what is distinctive about the Lord Most High, since syllogistic reasoning does not establish particulars. When someone argues that every contingent existent must have a cause that necessitates its existence, and that everything brought into being must have one who brings it into being, the conclusion of this syllogism is something general. I have discussed this at length elsewhere.

The same applies to those who practise spiritual discipline and detachment. Their elite occupy themselves with a simple form of remembrance, such as “There is no deity worthy of worship except Allah”—unless they go to excess and restrict themselves to merely saying “Allah, Allah,” believing this to be better and more perfect, as many of them have done. Some may even restrict themselves to “He, He,” or to saying, “There is no ‘He’ but He.”

For this innovated remembrance, “He,” conveys by itself only an unspecified reference; it does not in itself mention Allah except through the speaker’s intention. This may also be accompanied by the practitioner’s belief that nothing exists except Him, as some explicitly state, saying, “There is no ‘He’ but He,” or, “There is no existent but He.” And this, according to the advocates of union,