These two explanations are therefore consistent, for the religion of Islam is to follow the Qur’an. Each, however, draws attention to a quality different from the other, while the very word ṣirāṭ (path) points to a third quality. The same holds for the one who said, “It is the Sunnah and the Community,” or the one who said, “It is the way of servitude,” or the one who said, “It is obedience to Allah and His Messenger ﷺ,” and the like. All are referring to a single reality; each is merely describing it by one of its attributes.

The second category is when each scholar, out of a broad generic name, mentions only one of its kinds by way of illustration, alerting the listener to the class as a whole—not intending a strict definition that matches the term in every general and specific aspect. It is like a non-Arabic speaker who asks about the meaning of the word “bread,” so a loaf is shown to him and he is told, “This is it.” The indication is toward that type of food, not toward that particular loaf alone. A comparable case is the explanation given for His words: “Then We caused those whom We chose from Our servants to inherit the Book; among them is one who wrongs himself, one who is moderate, and one who hastens to good deeds” (Fatir 35:32).

It is clear that “the one who wrongs himself” includes anyone who neglects obligations or commits prohibitions; “the moderate one” includes whoever fulfills the obligations and avoids the forbidden; and “the one who hastens to good deeds” encompasses whoever goes further, drawing near with supererogatory acts along with the obligations. The moderate ones are the Companions of the Right Hand, whereas “the foremost, the foremost—those are the ones brought near” (al-Waqiʿah 56:10–11).

Each commentator then applies this triad to a particular act of worship. One might say: the foremost is the person who performs the prayer at the very beginning of its time, the moderate is the one who performs it within its span, and the self-wronging is he who delays the afternoon prayer until the sun turns yellow. Another might point out that the foremost, the moderate, and the self-wronging are also mentioned at the end of Surah al-Baqarah, for there He says