two causes, the ruling is stronger and more firmly established than when either occurs alone.

Thus, when a single ruling is attributed to two causes in the words of the Lawgiver or the imams, this serves to emphasize how firmly the ruling is established and how strong it is. For example, Ahmad said concerning something whose prohibition is particularly severe: “This is like the flesh of a dead pig.” He said this to underscore the severity and strength of the prohibition.

This, too, comes back to the question of whether obligation, prohibition, and permissibility themselves admit of degrees: can one obligation be greater than another, and one prohibition greater than another? This is also disputed. The well-known position among most jurists, both those of our school and others, is that such variation is possible. A group, including Ibn ʿAqīl and others, denied this.

There is a similar dispute over whether one intellect can be more perfect than another. This resembles the dispute over whether the assent and knowledge within the heart admit of degrees. Two positions have been reported from Ahmad on this matter. The position of the imams of the Sunnah who oppose the Murjiʾah is that all these things vary in degree and excellence. The same applies to all the other attributes of a living being: love and hatred, will and aversion, hearing and sight, smell, taste, touch, satiety, the quenching of thirst, ability, inability, and so forth.

The dispute here resembles the dispute over whether two identical things can coexist, such as two instances of blackness or two instances of sweetness. There is no dispute that one instance of blackness may be more intense than another, or one instance of sweetness more intense than another. But should one say that two instances of blackness and two instances of sweetness coexist in the same locus, or that there is a single, intense blackness? This, too, is a merely verbal dispute.