Rather, the ruling is broader than the proof—or at the very least co-extensive with it—and this is what is meant when it is described as “broader.”

The thing indicated, namely the locus of the ruling—the entity about which the judgment is pronounced, the subject of the statement, the thing described—must be either narrower than the proof or exactly equal to it. When we speak of it as being “narrower,” we are simply affirming that it can never be broader than the proof; for if it were broader, the proof would not entail it. If the proof did not entail it, one could not know that what follows from the proof—the ruling—also follows for that subject; the ruling’s applicability would remain unestablished, and the proof would cease to function as a proof. A piece of evidence fulfils its role only when it is an inseparable concomitant of the entity to which the ruling is assigned—the subject (mawḍūʿ, mubtadaʾ)—and thereby necessitates the ruling, which is the attribute, predicate, or judgment (maḥmūl, khabar).

Consider intoxication: it is broader than the disputed case of nabidh, yet narrower than prohibition.

At times, the proof may be perfectly co-extensive with both the ruling and its locus.

Whatever mental or verbal form the proof may take, its reality is one and the same: what matters in making it a proof is that it necessitates the ruling and is inseparable from the subject to which that ruling applies. This is the very source of its signification, whether one casts it as analogical reasoning by subsumption or by representation, or in neither of those moulds.

The heart grasps this even when the tongue does not articulate it. Human minds naturally infer conclusions from proofs even when they lack words that lay bare what is within them; they may also express their meanings clearly without adopting the technical vocabulary of any particular school among the theologians, logicians, or others. Nevertheless, knowledge of that necessary concomitance must be either self-evident or established by some other proof.

The Essence of Analogy by Representation and its Comparison with Analogy by Subsumption

Analogy by representation is the mind’s passage from one particular ruling to another particular ruling because both share a single, universal meaning; for that ruling is a necessary concomitant of that universal meaning. Knowledge of this concomitance, if not self-evident, must be supported by some cause, as has already been explained.