its opening chapter to its conclusion, pausing at every verse to ask him about its commentary.

[Reconciling the two views by clarifying the meanings of the term taʾwīl]

On close examination, the two positions are not mutually exclusive, for the word taʾwīl has, through the proliferation of technical usages, come to be used in three senses:

1. The first—adopted by many later theologians and by scholars of fiqh and its uṣūl—is that taʾwīl denotes diverting a word from the stronger, more apparent possibility to a weaker, less apparent one on the strength of some accompanying proof. This is what most later authors have in mind when they speak about interpreting the scriptural passages on the divine attributes or leaving them uninterpreted, and whether that is to be deemed praiseworthy or blameworthy, correct or incorrect.