community by calculating the numerical values of letters. The evidence is His saying, Most High:

“That is better and best in outcome,”

meaning its ultimate outcome.

I say: These are the two views mentioned by Ibn al-Jawzī. None of these exegetes stated that interpretation, in the sense of diverting a verse from its apparent meaning, was intended in His saying, Most High:

“But no one knows its interpretation except Allah.”

Indeed, as they said, this understanding has not been transmitted from any of the early generations. Rather, some later scholars understood it this way because, in their terminology, the word “interpretation” had this meaning. They therefore assumed that this was what interpretation meant in the language of the Quran. Their position entails that none of the ambiguous passages is intended to convey what is