the discourse therein, or if he separates between the excepted from and the excepted by foreign speech, it is not valid; because when he pauses or shifts from his acknowledgment to something else, the ruling of what he acknowledged is established and is not removed, contrary to when it is within his speech, for then its ruling is not established, and it awaits what completes his speech, and the ruling of the exception, condition, conjunction, substitution, and the like, relates to it.

Section: It is not valid to except the whole by consensus; because exception is the removal of some of what the wording encompasses, and excepting the whole is the removal of the whole. If it were valid, the entire speech would become void and purposeless. If he says: "I owe him one dirham and [another] dirham except a dirham," or "three dirhams and two dirhams except two dirhams," or "three and a half except a half," or "except a dirham," or "ninety-five except five," the exception is not valid, and all that he acknowledged before the exception is binding upon him. This is the opinion of al-Shafi'i, and it is what is necessitated by the school of Abu Hanifa. There is another opinion that it is valid; because the conjunction 'wa' (and) gathers the two numbers and makes the two sentences as one sentence. It is a fundamental principle of ours that when an exception follows sentences conjoined to each other by 'wa', it refers back to all of them, like our statement regarding the saying of Allah the Almighty: {And do not accept their testimony ever, and those are the disobedient (4) except those who repent (5)}: that the exception refers back to both sentences, so if the slanderer repents, his testimony is accepted. Among such examples is the statement of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): "Let no man lead another in prayer in his place of authority, and let him not sit on his honorific seat except with his permission." The first opinion is more appropriate; because the 'wa' did not remove the speech from being two sentences, and the exception removes one of them entirely, and there is no parallel to this in their speech. Furthermore, the validity of the exception would render one of the two sentences, along with the exception, void, because he established a thing with a singular expression, then removed it all, so it is not valid, just as if he were to except from them while they were not conjoined to some of them. As for the verse and the Hadith, the exception did not remove one of the two sentences; rather, it excluded from both sentences together those who possessed a [specific] attribute, thus its parallel is as if he said to the doorman: "Whoever comes to seek permission, grant him permission and give him a dirham, except so-and-so." The parallel to our issue is as if he said: "Honor Zayd and 'Amr, except 'Amr." And if he said: "I owe him two dirhams and three except two dirhams," it is also invalid; because he is removing the entire first sentence, so it is similar to if he had said: "Honor Zayd and 'Amr except Zayd." If he said: "I owe him three and three except two dirhams," two opinions were derived regarding it; because he has excepted the majority of the sentence that follows it, and excepting the majority is invalid, just like excepting the whole.