and the heirs of the Magians, the idolaters, the misguided among the Sabians, and all those who resemble them be more knowledgeable of Allah than the heirs of the prophets and the people of the Qur-an and faith?!"

Ibn al-Qayyim fashioned the entire book as a reply to that challenge, saying, “The true substance of the answer will only become clear through a set of chapters.”

He then enumerated those chapters—twenty-four in total—of unequal length: some comprise no more than two pages, others run to dozens, while the twenty-fourth chapter alone extends over several hundred pages.

What follows is a concise overview of the chapters and their main themes:

Chapter One: Defining the reality of taʾwīl (interpretation) and the senses in which the term is used, both linguistically and technically.

Taʾwīl is the explanation of what something ultimately turns into; therefore the final outcome itself is called taʾwīl, and the actual reality of the thing reported is likewise termed taʾwīl. Dream interpretation is called taʾwīl for the same two reasons: it explains the dream and points to the outcome to which it leads. The final cause and the intended wisdom behind an act are also named taʾwīl, for they disclose the doer’s purpose in a deed whose aim is hidden from the onlooker.

In the usage of Qurʾanic exegetes and the early generations among the jurists and ḥadith scholars, taʾwīl simply means clarification and exposition. By contrast, for the Muʿtazilah, the Jahmiyyah, and other schools of speculative theology, taʾwīl denotes diverting a word from its outward, literal sense to a figurative sense that departs from the apparent meaning.

Chapter Two: The division of taʾwīl into sound and unsound.

Sound taʾwīl is that which agrees with the indications of the revealed texts and that which has come