Shaykh al-Islām—may Allah sanctify his soul—also said:

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The primary meaning of mathal (likeness) is something similar to another. It is of two kinds, since a given proposition may express either a particular resemblance or a general, universal one. Universal propositions that are known and stated correspond to, and resemble, everything that falls within their scope. This is called qiyās (inference) both in the language of the early generations and in the terminology of logicians. Comparing one particular thing with another is also called qiyās in the language of the early generations and in the terminology of jurists. This is what is called analogical inference.

Some later scholars—such as al-Ghazālī and others—claimed that the term qiyās properly applies only to this latter form, whereas calling the combination of universal propositions qiyās is metaphorical. Their reason is that nothing in it is compared to anything else; rather, the universality of the judgment entails that all the individual cases it covers share equally in that judgment. Others took the opposite view, such as Abū Muhammad ibn Hazm, who maintained