 The intelligent person (al-‘âqil)—here simply meaning a person with full rational capacity—realizes that all the features of the building, its height, its length, its form, etc., are actualized possibilities and could be different. The same applies to the time when the building is built. We immediately realize, al-Juwaynî says, that there is a synchronic alternative state to the actual building. This is what we call possibility or more precisely contingency (imkân). Realizing that there is such an alternative is an important part of our understanding: “The intelligent person cannot realize in his mind anything about the states of the building without comparing it with what is contingent like it (imkân mithlihi) or what is different from it (khilâfihi).” (al-Juwaynî 1948,9.)