the witnesses, then in Allah’s sight they are indeed liars’ (24:13). Thus the one who hurls a charge of fornication is a liar, even if the person he accuses actually committed fornication, because he has reported something he had no right to report and ventured into a matter about which he has no knowledge. Allah knows best.

For this reason many of the early Muslims were extremely wary of explaining anything in the Quran for which they had no firm knowledge. Shuʿbah narrated from Sulaymān, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Murrah, from Abū Maʿmar, who said that Abu Bakr al-Ṣiddīq remarked, ‘Which patch of earth could possibly carry me and which sky could shade me were I to say about the Book of Allah what I do not know?’ (1)

Abū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim ibn Sallām said: Muḥammad ibn Yazīd narrated to us, from al-ʿAwwām ibn Ḥawshab, from Ibrāhīm al-Taymī that Abu Bakr al-Ṣiddīq was asked about the Almighty’s words, ‘and fruit and abbā’ (80:31). He replied, ‘Which sky would shade me and which earth would carry me if I were to speak about the Book of Allah without knowledge?’ The chain of this report is disconnected.

Explanation

Suppose a man were asked about the meaning of the Almighty’s saying, ‘and fruit and abbā,’ and he answered that abbā means ab—that is, the father. He would have interpreted the Quran according to his own opinion and ignorance. He has heard people pronounce al-ab (father) with a doubled bā’, even though in reality it is not doubled, and so he assumed that Allah’s statement ‘and fruit and abbā’ means ‘fruit and abā,’ i.e., ‘and a father.’ Such a person has spoken about the Quran on the basis of his own opinion.

The same holds for anyone who applies the Quran in a manner Allah did not intend, as when some people say