Thus, the reality of fire is present, even though this particular flame is not that one. Yet fire and knowledge are not like speech conveyed on another’s behalf. Rather, their case resembles that of someone who hears another’s speech or poetry and then produces something of the same kind, saying something similar to what the other person said. As the saying goes:

“One thought may coincide with another, just as one hoofprint may fall upon another.”

This has nothing to do with conveying or transmitting another’s words.

(For the words someone utters:

“Indeed, everything apart from Allah is vain,”

are Labīd’s words, however people recite or write them. The poetry someone recites here is Labīd’s very own poetry.

If it is said, “The poetry that subsists in us is the same as that which subsisted in Labīd,” the reply is: “If what is meant by this is that the poetry, considered in itself… If what is meant is that the very thing that subsisted in his being left his being and passed into us, that is not so. Likewise, if what is meant is that the very attribute peculiar to that person, such as his movement and voice, is identical to the attribute peculiar to us, such as our movement and voice, that is not so.”) (*).

Your statement, “This is the same as that,” is therefore an expression whose ambiguity is clarified by its context. If you say, “This speech is the same as that,” or “This poetry is the same as that,” you are speaking truthfully. But if you say, “This voice is the same as that,” the statement is false.

When people say, “This is Labīd’s poetry,” they mean only what is common to both