Ibn al-Murahhal said:
“How can you make ‘hypocrisy’ a generic term when you have made it an equivocal term? If it is a generic term, it is univocal, and univocal terms are distinct from equivocal ones. How, then, can you make it both equivocal and univocal?”
Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn replied:
“I did not say that it was equivocal. I merely said that it applies to both this and that; application is a broader notion.
“Moreover, even if I had said that it was equivocal, the statement would have been correct. A single term may be applied to two things either univocally or equivocally. Thus, I applied the term ‘hypocrisy’ to concealing disbelief and concealing disobedience, sometimes equivocally and sometimes univocally. Likewise, the term ‘existence’ is applied to necessary being and contingent being equivocally according to some, and univocally according to others. This is why it is called an analogical term.”
Ibn al-Murahhal said:
“How can this be?” He then launched into remarks that would be unbecoming to repeat.
Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn said to him:
“Subtle meanings require attentive listening and reflection. When two essences have something in common and something that distinguishes them, and a term applies to each, it may be applied to both with reference to that by which