A further use is istīfāʾ aqsām al-shayʾ—an enumeration that exhausts the relevant possible categories of a thing.
Its rhetorical merit lies not in merely naming many groups but in comprehensiveness. The branches must be distinguished in the chosen respect and together cover the possibilities under discussion.
An incomplete list leaves relevant cases out. An exhaustive partition includes every possible case relative to the stated dimension of classification.
The Qur’anic illustration enumerates the possibilities for granting children or withholding them.