person is only what he intended,” “These are the words of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace”; and of a verse such as:

“Behold, everything apart from Allah is vain,”

“This is Labīd’s poetry.”

When they say, “This is that very thing,” they do not mean merely that the two are of the same kind, as when someone says, “This blackness is the same as that blackness.” For they use this expression of two utterances, two instances of knowledge, two powers or two individuals that happen to match. In such cases they say, “One thought coincides with another as one hoofprint coincides with another.” In reality, however, one is merely like the other, as Allah Most High says:

“Likewise, those before them said the like of what they say.”

They say, “This is that very thing,” when the two agree in their attributes, and may even do so when there are differences between them that are irrelevant to the point intended. Similarly, they say of a single entity whose attributes have changed, “This is the very same thing.”

Nor is this like adopting someone else’s words, whether verse or prose—for example, when a man adopts another’s saying and thus speaks those words himself, following the example of the original speaker. This is like our saying something that someone else has said, agreeing with that speaker that the statement is true.

For this reason, the jurists said that whoever utters words matching the wording of the Quran by way of