the analogue to be the very reality itself (1). This inevitably casts him into perplexity and doubt, and that is what the Sacred Law terms mutashabih (ambiguous). Such confusion never befalls either the scholars or the general public; in truth these two constitute the people at large, for they are the healthy ones, and suitable nourishment agrees only with healthy bodies (2). Those others, however, are sick, and the sick are but few. It is for this reason that Allah, exalted is He, says: “As for those in whose hearts is deviance, they pursue what is ambiguous thereof” ⦗Āl ʿImrān 3:7⦘. These are the people of disputation (3) and speculative theology.

The gravest harm this faction has brought upon the Sacred Law is that they have interpreted many passages whose outward sense they deemed unacceptable, asserting that their own interpretation is what is truly intended, and claiming that Allah cast the verses in an ambiguous form only as a trial and test for His servants. We seek refuge in Allah from harbouring such thoughts about Him; rather, we affirm that Allah’s Mighty Book is miraculous precisely because of its clarity and manifest exposition. How far, then, from the aim of the Sacred Law is the one who pronounces something unambiguous to be ambiguous, then proceeds to construe that supposed ambiguity according to his fancy and tells all (4) people, “Your obligation is to believe in this interpretation”—just as they have done with the verses concerning Allah’s rising (istiwāʾ) over the Throne and other passages whose outward meaning, they claim, is ambiguous.

In short, most of the interpretations whose proponents allege that they represent the very intent of the Sacred Law, when examined, are found to rest on no sound proof and do not achieve what the plain wording does in terms of the public’s ready acceptance of it and their practice (5) of it. For the primary objective of knowledge, with respect to