If he responds, “I have no conception whatsoever of what I am saying; I neither understand it nor grasp it,” we say to him, “Then you have spoken about Allah without knowledge and have pursued something of which you possess no knowledge at all. One of the greatest and most proscribed abominations in every revealed law is for a person, guided only by his own opinion, to speak of Allah with words whose meaning he cannot even picture or comprehend.

Every rational person recognizes that when someone utters a statement he himself cannot envisage or understand, his statement is rejected outright, inadmissible, and counted among the blameworthy falsehoods.

Should one of them claim, “I do understand, conceive, and grasp what I am saying,” he is told, “Then explain it to others so that they too may understand, grasp, and conceive it. Do not say, ‘It lies beyond the intellect,’ for it is a proposition you yourself have understood and comprehended. That leaves you with an inescapable alternative: either your words are intelligible, or they are not.

If you do understand what you are saying, it must therefore be something the intellect can apprehend. But if you do not understand or grasp it, you have spoken about Allah on the basis of something you neither understand nor comprehend—voicing your own opinion rather than simply transmitting the prophets’ wording. Whoever merely conveys the authentic words of the prophets is not required to fathom or comprehend their meaning.

For this reason the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—said: “May Allah brighten the face of one who hears a hadith from us and conveys it to someone who has not heard it. Many a bearer of fiqh (understanding) is himself no jurist, and many a bearer of fiqh conveys it to one who is more versed than he.” Thus, a man may preserve certain words, pass them on to others, and yet not himself grasp or comprehend their meaning.