—a pure invention, not a truthful account of how the Arabs actually employed the word.

Likewise, their interpreting istiwaʾ as istilāʾ (seizing dominion) has no basis in Arabic usage, and none of the eminent lexicographers has ever affirmed it. Leading specialists such as Ibn al-Aʿrabi have stated explicitly that the language knows no such sense. Even if that meaning were hypothetically possible, this particular construction would still not tolerate it; for His seizing and overwhelming of the Throne—exalted is He—did not occur after the creation of the heavens and the earth. The Throne was created more than fifty thousand years before them, as the Truthful and Trustworthy Prophet informed us in a sound report (1). The invalidity of this interpretation can be demonstrated in forty distinct ways, which we shall present in their proper place in this book (2), Allah willing.

Our purpose here is to set out the duties that rest upon anyone who offers an interpretation:

1. First, he must show that the wording is actually capable of bearing the meaning he has proposed.

2. Second, he must demonstrate that this very meaning is the one intended; for once a term is removed from its literal sense it can admit several possible meanings, and specifying which of them is meant requires proof.

3. Third, he must provide evidence strong enough to divert the wording from its literal and apparent sense [ق 12 أ], for the case advanced by the advocate of the literal meaning already stands. One may not abandon that sense except on the basis of counter-evidence stronger than it.

4. Fourth, he must answer any objections, for the proponent of the literal sense has adduced both rational and textual proofs that the literal meaning is indeed what is intended.