written works. This is what those in earlier times who used the term meant by occupying a spatial region. For their disputes are often merely verbal. However, the scholars of the Sunnah and hadith take care to adhere to the wording of the revealed texts and of the early generations. Many who seek to do so affirm expressions whose meanings they do not understand. Someone may affirm an expression yet reject another meaning that amounts to no more than part of the meaning of the expression he affirms.

For this reason, many speculative theologians criticize such people, who use contradictory expressions without recognizing the contradiction in them. Yet this and similar faults occur many times more frequently among speculative theologians than among the scholars of hadith.