both accounts can be accurate: the verse may have been revealed after all of those circumstances, or it may have been revealed twice—once for this reason and once for that.

These two kinds of diversity in explanation—at times arising from the variety of the divine Names and Attributes, and at other times from mentioning only some categories or subdivisions of the referent, as in illustrative examples—are what dominate the commentary of the early generations, which many suppose to be conflicting.

Some of the disputes reported from them concern expressions that admit two readings. This may be because the word is polysemous in Arabic, like qaswara, which can mean “archer” or “lion,” and ʿasʿasa, which can mean “the coming of night” or “its departure.” Or it may be because the word is originally general yet is intended to single out one of two kinds or two entities, such as the pronouns in His saying, “Then he drew near and descended, and was at a distance of two bow-lengths or nearer” (al-Najm 53:8–9).

True synonymy in the language is rare, and in the diction of the Quran it is either exceedingly infrequent or altogether absent.

The Arabs often make a verb carry the meaning of another and govern it with that other verb’s preposition; those who imagine that one preposition can simply replace another have therefore erred.

Disagreement may occur because the evidence is subtle, because it has been overlooked, because it has not been heard, because the text has been misunderstood, or because an apparently stronger opposing view is held.

Differences in exegesis fall into two categories: some rest solely on transmitted reports, while others are established by means other than transmission. Knowledge is acquired either through trustworthy report or through verified reasoning, and whatever is transmitted comes either from the infallible Messenger or from someone else.