and clarification; as for one who seeks only to confuse and obscure, that is another matter altogether.

The point is this: when the outward wording has a single, obvious sense and that sense is employed uniformly (1) in every one of its occurrences, reinterpretation is impossible—even though the apparent sense of a word or phrase whose usage is not so consistent may indeed allow for interpretation. An example is the uninterrupted wording of the verse, “The Most Compassionate established Himself above the Throne” [Taha: 4] and “Then He established Himself above the Throne” [Al-A‘raf: 53]. Throughout the Qur’an this wording never changes, so construing istawā as “took dominion” is invalid. Such a reading would be conceivable only if the majority of occurrences used the form istawlà (“took dominion”) and then a single verse departed from that pattern by saying istawā; in that case one might legitimately interpret istawā to mean istawlà. Take careful note of this (2) and adopt it as a rule for what may not (3) be re-interpreted in an author’s speech and what may.

A comparable case is the consistent wording of the texts concerning the beatific vision of Allah: “You will see your Lord” (4); “You will look at your Lord” (5); and “Looking toward their Lord” [Al-Qiyāmah: 22]. Not once does any text read, “You will see the reward of your Lord,” so that one might carry the explicit passages back to a wording found nowhere in their parallels.

The same applies to the steady pattern in the verses: “We called him” [Maryam: 51], “On the Day He will call them” (6) [Al-Qasas: 62], “Their Lord called to them” [Al-A‘raf: 21], and “You were not at the side of the Mount when…"