the month except twenty-nine days." It is said: "I met the people, all of them, except one or two." It is not permissible to say: "I met the people except the majority of them." If it is not correct in speech, that which he acknowledged is not lifted by it, just like the exception of the whole. And as if he said: "He has ten against me, nay, five." As for what they used as evidence from the Revelation, in the first verse, He excepted the chosen ones from the children of Adam, and they are the few, as the Almighty said: {Except those who believe and do righteous deeds - and few are they} (7). In the other, He excepted the deviators from the servants, and they are the few; for the angels are among the servants, and they are not deviators, as God the Almighty said: {Rather, they are honored servants} (8). It is said: The exception in this verse is disconnected (munqati') in the sense of rectification (istidrak); thus, His saying: {Indeed, My servants - no authority will you have over them} remains upon its generality, and nothing was excepted from it, then He initiated: {except those who follow you of the deviators}. Meaning: but those who followed you from among the deviators, they have indeed deviated by following you. The correctness of this is indicated by His saying in the other verse to his followers: {And I had no authority over you except that I invited you, and you responded to me} (9). Based on this, they have no argument in it. As for the verse, the grammarian Ibn Fadlal (10) said: It is a fabricated verse, not established from the Arabs. Furthermore, this is not an exception, for the exception has specific words, and there is nothing of them here (11), and analogy (qiyas) is not permissible in linguistics. We then oppose them by saying: He has excepted more than half, so it is not permissible, just as the exception of the whole. The distinction between the exception of the more and the less is that the Arabs utilized it for the less and rendered it beautiful, and negated it for the more and rendered it ugly; therefore, it is not permissible to apply by analogy what they rendered ugly to that which they permitted and rendered beautiful.

Section: There are two views regarding the exception of half; one of them is that it is permissible. This is the manifest [position] of the words of al-Khiraqi;