Thus, to interpret the vision mentioned here in a manner that contradicts its reality and its outward sense is wholly inadmissible; it is outright rejection and denial, thinly veiled by the claim of “interpretation.”

Fourth: interpretations that employ a meaning never customary in the language of the audience, even though it may have become current in later technical jargon. This is a point at which (1) many people have slipped and their understandings have gone astray: they have construed many expressions of the revealed texts with senses for which the word has never been used in Arabic at all, even though such usage may be familiar in the terminology of later writers. One must be alert to this, for a great deal of falsehood against Allah and His Messenger has arisen because of it.

For example, a group interpreted His words, “when it set” [al-Anʿām 6:77, 78], to mean “when it moved,” and said that Abraham inferred the falsehood of its lordship from its movement. Yet in the language in which the Quran was revealed, afala (setting) is never, in a single instance, used to mean mere movement.

Another case is interpreting the Divine Name al-Ahad (the One) as “that from which absolutely nothing can be distinguished from anything else,” and then arguing: “If He were above the Throne [q 4 b], He would not be the One.” No Arab or linguist has ever understood al-Ahad in this sense, nor is the word employed with that meaning anywhere in their speech; it is merely a convention of the Jahmiyyah, the philosophers, the Muʿtazilites, and those who follow them.

Likewise is the interpretation of His statement, “Then He istawa over the Throne” [al-Aʿrāf 7:54], claiming that its meaning is, “He turned toward…"