These expressions may be unfamiliar and their meanings altered; their meanings may also remain unchanged, or the expressions themselves may not be unfamiliar.

Thus, ‘hyle’ and similar expressions used by the philosophers are not unfamiliar in their language; its meaning resembles that of a receptacle, a place, and the like. The terms ‘intellect’ and ‘matter’, however, have meanings in their discourse different from their meanings in Arabic. By ‘intellect’, they mean a substance subsisting in itself. In Arabic, however, ‘intellect’ denotes an accident—knowledge or action based on knowledge—as well as an innate faculty that gives rise to this. In their usage, matter belongs to the same category as hyle.

Likewise, the terms ‘body’, ‘substance’, ‘accident’, ‘occupying space’, ‘division’, and ‘composition’ have meanings in the terminology of speculative thinkers different from their meanings in Arabic. These expressions, however, are not used in the Quran in divine matters. Similarly, a group of speculative theologians and philosophers have altered the meanings of ‘divine oneness’, ‘faith’, ‘Sunnah’, ‘revealed law’, and similar expressions used in divine matters.

The point here is that when someone asks about religious matters using expressions not transmitted from the Messenger in this connection—such as ‘direction’, ‘spatial location’, ‘body’, ‘substance’, ‘composite’, ‘divisible’, and the like—we examine what he means by his expression. We then affirm the meaning Allah has affirmed and deny the meaning Allah has denied.

If expressing that meaning in the questioner’s terms is permissible under the revealed law, we do so; otherwise, we use wording that is permissible under the revealed law. If his wording admits both a true and a false meaning, he is not permitted to use it without qualification, whether in affirmation or denial.