Taqwā belongs to the realm of warding off harm, whereas birr belongs to the realm of procuring benefit (1); thus taqwā is like a protective regimen (2), while birr is comparable to soundness and health.
This is a noble subject that yields immense benefit (3) for grasping the wording of the Quran, its implications, and the limits of what Allah sent down to His Messenger—for that is the truly beneficial knowledge. The Exalted One (4) has in His Book condemned those who possess no knowledge of the limits of what He revealed (5) to His Messenger. Ignorance of those limits necessarily gives rise to two serious evils:
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Things that do not fall under a given term are inserted into its meaning; they are then judged by the ruling intended for the term, thereby equating matters that Allah has distinguished (6, 7).
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Some instances that do in fact fall under the term are excluded from it; its ruling is therefore stripped from them, separating matters that Allah has joined together (8).
The intelligent, perceptive person notices the individual cases and examples (9) of this principle and realizes that