and they rank above the general public but below the scholars. It is for this class that ambiguity exists in revelation, and it is they whom Allah has censured. For scholars and the general public, however, there is no ambiguity in revelation. This is how ambiguity should be understood.

What this class experiences with revelation resembles what happens with wheat bread, for example: although it is beneficial nourishment for most bodies, it may harm a few, while remaining beneficial to the majority. Likewise, religious teaching benefits most people but may harm a few. This is what the Most High alludes to in His words:

“But He misleads none thereby except the defiantly disobedient (26)” [al-Baqarah: 26].

Yet this occurs only with a small number of verses in the Noble Book, and only among a small number of people. Most such verses convey information about things in the unseen that have no counterpart in the observable world. They are therefore expressed through what is closest to them and most resembles them among observable things. Some people then take the illustration to be the very thing illustrated, leaving them bewildered and doubtful. This is what is called ambiguity in revelation. It arises neither among scholars [nor] among the general public, who are, in truth, the two classes of people, for these are the healthy ones,