differentiation into kinds or division, whereas what is one in kind admits both. Rather, these are attributes of that numerically single meaning—relational attributes. When it relates to actions required of servants, it is a command; when it relates to what is forbidden, it is a prohibition; and when it relates to something being declared, it is a declaration.

The great majority of rational thinkers say:

The falsity of this is necessarily known. We know that the meanings of “Say: He is Allah, One” are not the meanings of “May the hands of Abū Lahab perish”; that the meanings of the verse concerning debt are not those of the Throne Verse; and that the meanings of statements about Allah’s attributes are not those of statements about His creations.

Moreover, if the relation of that meaning to the realities being described and the actions to which commands and prohibitions pertain has actual existence, it must have a subject in which to subsist. If it subsists in Allah’s essence, then the meanings of the speech subsisting in His essence are multiple. If it subsists in the essence of another, it is an attribute of that other, not of Allah. If it subsists without a subject, that is impossible, for meanings do not subsist independently. But if that meaning’s relation to those realities has no actual existence, there would be nothing to distinguish declaration, command, and prohibition. Indeed, nothing would distinguish Allah’s statements about Himself from His statements about the people of Noah and ʿĀd, since that single meaning contains no multiplicity, let alone parts distinguishable from one another.

The realities about which statements are made, and which are commanded or forbidden, do not, in and of themselves, acquire the status of being stated, commanded, or forbidden. Rather, statements about them, commands to perform them, and prohibitions against them are distinct from the things themselves. Thus, if there were nothing existent apart from that meaning, within which there is neither distinction nor multiplicity, and apart from the created things, which do not distinguish between command, prohibition, and declaration, then there would not