Implied meaning (muqtada)

Muqtada is, in the lexicon, implication. In usul it is an utterance that cannot stand unless something is supplied in it. ¹

The implied item (muqtada, with the vowel on the second letter) is what is supplied in speech out of necessity to make the speaker truthful, as in the verse of Surat Yusuf that asks the town, meaning its people. Abu Ishaq, al-Ghazali, al-Sam'ani and most Hanafis take the dispute to concern the supplied item rather than the word that calls for it. ^{1 2}

The manṭūq is what the word signifies at the place of utterance; the mafhum is what it signifies not at that place. The muqtada is also a kind of signification. ²

Most usul scholars deny generality to the muqtada, because generality belongs to speech and because the implication is needed only as far as the need goes. Al-Shafi'i and most Hanbalis hold that it has generality because it stands in the place of an explicit text. The details are in the usul appendix. ^{2 3}