be intended by someone framing an utterance with that expression—and then uses those meanings to interpret the speech of Allah and His Messenger: his falsehood and misguidance, indeed his disbelief and hypocrisy, are even greater than theirs. For the gulf between the speech of Allah and His Messenger, and their intended meanings concerning His names and attributes, on the one hand, and the speech of Bedouins and the like, and their intended descriptions of camels, sheep, dwellings, watering places, and tribes, on the other, is greater than the difference between the speech of jurists and that of physicians.

This exposes the falsity of a claim made in the principles of jurisprudence by some people, including this author and others like him: that when the Muslim community holds two differing interpretations of a verse, later generations may introduce another interpretation, whereas they may not do so regarding legal rulings. The community’s interpretation of the Quran and hadith is its declaration that this is what Allah Most High intends by the text, either definitively or according to its apparent meaning. Its agreement upon one or two positions concerning interpretation is therefore like its agreement upon one or two positions concerning legal rulings.

Even if interpretation were understood merely as allowing a possible intended meaning—for example, one group saying, “This may be the intended meaning,” and another group saying, “This may be the intended meaning”—they would have agreed that