a loaf and says, “This.” In other words, by recognizing the individual specimen one learns the entire class.

Likewise, if he is asked about “the moderate, the forerunner, and the wrongdoer,” he may answer:
“The moderate (al-muqtasid) is the one who performs the obligatory prayer within its time and adds nothing further. The wrongdoer (al-ẓālim) is the one who delays it beyond its time. The forerunner (al-sābiq) is the one who prays at the very beginning of the time and adds the regular supererogatory prayers.”

This sort of explanation is illustrative: it defines the term by giving an example so as to bring the meaning to mind. The point is not that the questioner was unaware that some people pray at the start of the time, others during it, and others after it; rather, he did not know that these three cases exemplify the wrongdoer, the moderate, and the forerunner. Once he understands that, he can measure by analogy everyone who merely fulfils the obligation, everyone who exceeds it, and everyone who falls short.

In most situations, the limits of such terms are acquired without any explicit questioning by anyone who mingles with speakers of the language or reads their works, for knowledge of linguistic meanings is gained in this way.

Some people imagine that these limits are purely linguistic and that mastery of the language, its dictionaries, and bilingual works is enough to establish them. This is by no means the case.

The terms found in the Qur’an and the Sunnah fall into three categories:

1. Those whose definition is known through language alone, such as “sun,” “moon,” and “star.”
2. Those that can be defined only through the Sacred Law, such as the names of obligatory and forbidden acts: prayer, pilgrimage, usury, gambling, and the like.
3. Those whose definition is determined by customary usage—the normal convention of speech—such as marriage, sale, taking possession, and similar terms.

What we have discussed here concerns knowing their limits, that is, the general things they denote.