to those specific persons alone. No Muslim—indeed, no rational human being—would ever claim that. True, scholars have differed over whether a general wording revealed on account of a particular incident remains confined to that incident, but never has a Muslim scholar said that the universal statements of the Qur’an and Sunnah apply only to one named individual. At most they say that the verse is restricted to the type exemplified by that person, so that it includes everyone who resembles him; its breadth, then, is determined not merely by its wording.
A verse that has a specific occasion of revelation—if it contains a command or prohibition—addresses both the person concerned and anyone else in the same situation. If it conveys praise or blame, it likewise embraces that person and all others of the same category.
Knowing the occasion of revelation aids in grasping the verse, for awareness of the cause leads to awareness of the effect. This is why the sounder of the two juristic opinions holds that when the intention of someone who swears an oath is unclear, one should look to the circumstance that provoked and stirred his oath.
When they say, “This verse was revealed about such-and-such,” they may mean that it was the very cause of revelation, or they may simply mean that the case mentioned falls under the verse even if it was not the cause, just as one might say, “Such-and-such is meant by this verse.”
Scholars have disagreed over a Companion’s remark, “This verse was revealed concerning such-and-such”: should it be classed as a musnad (connected) report, because he is narrating the cause for which the verse descended, or as his personal exegesis, which is not musnad? Al-Bukhari counts it among the musnad reports, whereas others do not. Most Musnad collections follow this usage, such as the Musnad of Ahmad and the like. The situation is different, however, when a Companion explicitly names a cause that preceded the revelation; in that case they all record the report in the Musnad.
Once this is understood, one person’s statement, “It was revealed concerning such-and-such,” does not contradict another’s, “It was revealed concerning such-and-such,” so long as the wording of the verse encompasses them both, as we explained through interpretation by example. Likewise, if one of them cites a cause for which the verse was revealed while another mentions