And the Companions of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, consistently refrained from probing into the meanings of such texts or attempting to uncover what lay within them—though they were the choicest of the Muslim community and the ones shouldering the full burden of the Sharia. They spared no effort in formulating the principles of the faith, exhorting one another to preserve them, and teaching people what they needed of them—so if interpreting these outward passages had ever been permissible or