nor is this wording found in any of his statements or those of his followers. The same is true of the assertion that Ahmad ruled out figurative interpretation except in these three hadiths. We have already cited enough of his statements on the meaning of the term “interpretation” and on interpreting hadiths in this area. Al-Khallāl’s Book of the Sunnah and other works contain statements by Imam Ahmad that make his position clear.

We shall explain that exempting these three hadiths from the prohibition of figurative interpretation is not something that anyone associated with Ahmad’s students could reasonably say, let alone Ahmad himself. Only people such as these could accept these hadiths as authentic and regard them as subject to figurative interpretation: people who cannot distinguish authentic hadiths from weak ones, and who do not understand what words signify well enough to distinguish an interpretation that departs from the apparent meaning from one that does not.

Because they have so little knowledge of the signposts of guidance—the words of the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace—and of how those words convey their meanings, they fall into confusion and uncertainty. They cannot even distinguish what should be accepted from the statements of the philosophers and speculative theologians from what should be rejected. Rather,