namely, that the reality affirmed of the Lord is something unique to Him, even though its general kind is intelligible.

A universal meaning is indispensable in so-called “analogical” (mushakkik) names. For this reason the more astute scholars have held that the names predicated of God and of other beings are predicated by way of tashkīk—a form of broad univocity—not by mere homonymy, nor by strict univocity in which all instances are identical, but by univocity in which the instances differ in degree. Thus the words “white” or “black” may be used of an intense shade, as in the whiteness of snow, and of a lesser shade, as in the whiteness of ivory. Likewise, the term “existence” is applied to the Necessary Being and to the contingent being, yet existence in the Necessary Being is fuller and nobler than the difference between one shade of whiteness and another.

The disparity found in such analogical names does not preclude a common, universal meaning that embraces both. Indeed, analogical names require a universal meaning, even if that universality exists only in the mind. This is precisely what allows a universal to be divided into its particulars: when we say, for example, “what exists is either necessary or contingent,” the subject of that division is shared by both divisions. That the existence of the Necessary Being is more perfect than that of the contingent does not cancel the fact that the word “existence” conveys a single universal meaning common to them both.

The same holds true for all the other names and attributes predicated of both Creator and creature—such as the Living, the All-Knowing, the All-Powerful, the All-Hearing, and the All-Seeing—and for His attributes themselves: His knowledge, power, mercy, pleasure, wrath, joy, and every other name and attribute spoken of by the Messengers.

The disagreement over names applied to God, exalted is He, and to His servants: people have differed in this field, and one group—including Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Nāshiʾ, among the early