“And none knows its interpretation except Allah.” They quote this verse in order to abolish all interpretation. Yet this is self-contradictory, for the verse itself establishes that there is an interpretation known only to Allah, even as they categorically negate interpretation.

Their error springs from confusing two distinct senses of the word. The interpretation Allah has reserved for Himself is the ultimate reality that only He can know. The censured, invalid interpretation is that of the people of distortion and innovation: they twist the wording away from its intended meaning to another meaning without any proof that warrants such a shift. They claim that the apparent sense entails an objectionable consequence—yet that very consequence is identical to what they themselves affirm on purely rational grounds! They redirect the text toward meanings that are of the same genus as the meanings they have denied. Thus, what they reject is of the same kind as what they affirm: if what they affirm is a genuine, possible truth, then what they reject is likewise; and if what they reject is false and impossible, then what they affirm is equally false and impossible.

Those who repudiate interpretation outright and adduce the divine statement, “And none knows its interpretation except Allah,” may end up imagining that the Quran addresses us with words no one can comprehend, or with expressions that carry no meaning, or from which nothing at all can be understood.