their realities and inner essence, as Allah, exalted is He, says about Himself:
“He knows what lies before them and what is behind them, yet they do not encompass Him in knowledge” (20:110).
And He says, “Vision cannot grasp Him, while He grasps all vision” (6:103).
About what awaits on the Last Day He says, “No soul knows what comfort of the eyes has been hidden for them, as a reward for what they used to do” (32:17).
In the sacred hadith authentically transmitted in the two Ṣaḥīḥ collections the Prophet ﷺ relates that Allah said: “I have prepared for My righteous servants that which no eye has ever seen, no ear has ever heard, and has never occurred to the human heart.”
Thus, when Allah speaks about Himself or about the Hereafter He employs words whose forms—and to some extent their meanings—resemble things we know in this world. He tells us, for example, that He is Living, All-Knowing, All-Powerful, All-Hearing, All-Seeing, and so on. Yet we also know that the attributes indicated by these names are, in their true reality, utterly unlike the corresponding qualities found in created beings; their full nature is known only to Allah.
Likewise we know that Paradise contains meat, milk, honey, water, wine, and the like, but the reality of those things bears no comparison with their worldly counterparts; their true nature is known only to Allah, exalted is He.
Information about what is unseen cannot be conveyed unless it is expressed through names whose meanings are already familiar in the realm of sensory experience. By what we know of the visible world we gain an intimation of what lies in the unseen, all the while recognizing the decisive difference between the two and acknowledging that whatever Allah has told us about the unseen surpasses anything we know of the seen.
This is the category whose reality is known only to Allah, and therefore it is not subject to inquiry, for reaching it is impossible.
The second category, relative ambiguity, concerns matters that are unclear to some people but not to others. Those firmly grounded in knowledge and faith perceive in them what remains hidden from others—whether because the latter lack learning, are negligent in seeking it, are limited in understanding, or harbor ill intentions.