Nor is it permissible to interpret what is known to be false on the assumption that it is authentic, especially in a matter such as this. Doing so assigns a sound meaning to a falsehood. Yet that assumption does not hold, so neither does what depends upon it—namely, attributing a sound meaning to that report.

We have explained earlier that interpretation means explaining the speaker’s intent, not explaining the meanings that the wording can bear linguistically. Accordingly, it is impossible to say, “The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, intended such-and-such by these words,” while knowing that he never uttered those words. Affirming his intention while knowing that it did not exist is to affirm two contradictories together. Whether or not the wording can bear that meaning linguistically, this cannot establish that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, intended that meaning through words we know he never uttered.

Knowledge of which reports are fabricated and invented, and which are authentic and established, comes through the explanations of the scholars of hadith and the Sunnah. As for this author of Ta’sīs al-taqdīs and others like him, they do not distinguish between the two. They may even reject as false hadiths that the scholars know to be true, while accepting as true—or allowing the possible truth of—hadiths known to be false.

Once this is understood, these two hadiths, together with the verse, contain two points: