Chapter Eleven (1)
On the fact that for a speaker to intend that the audience carry his words in a sense contrary to their outward and real meaning is incompatible with the purpose of clarification, instruction, and guidance; that the two intentions cannot coexist (2); and that, for the listener, the speaker’s remaining silent would be better and closer to guidance than addressing him in such a manner.

Since the aim of speech is to direct the hearer and make him understand what the speaker intends by his words—laying bare the meanings in the speaker’s mind and indicating them by the shortest route—the attainment of that aim depends (3) on two things: the speaker’s clarity, and the listener’s ability to comprehend.

If clarity is lacking on the speaker’s part, or it is present but the listener is unable to grasp it, the speaker’s intent is not realized. Thus, when the speaker expresses his intention with words that point to it, yet the listener does not know the meanings of those words, no clarification has taken place for him. Both the listener’s capacity to understand and the speaker’s act of making himself understood are therefore indispensable.

Accordingly, were Allah and His Messenger to intend from their words something other than the apparent and real sense understood by the addressee, they would, in effect, be requiring him to discern their intent through what does not indicate it—indeed, through what points to its very opposite. They would be asking him to grasp a negation through words that signify the highest affirmation, and to perceive a matter through expressions that denote its contrary. They would thus be asking him to conclude that there is no deity worthy of worship above the Throne, no deity to whom prayer (4) and prostration are offered, and that He is neither within the universe nor outside it, nor above it.