rather than people of firm grounding, steadfastness, and certainty. Indeed, they may claim certainty about the contrary, yet have nothing concerning it but doubt and bewilderment greater than their bewilderment over the meanings of the Quran—as they themselves have explicitly acknowledged and as has been explained at length elsewhere.

Ninth: If neither the indeterminate expression nor the interpreted expression indicates the intended meaning, and that meaning cannot be understood from either, then they share this failure to convey understanding. They therefore resemble one another in their common feature, namely, this absence.

He may be answered: There is no resemblance here except in a relative sense: the listener finds the matter confusing and does not know what is intended. It is not that two expressions resemble one another. Two expressions resemble one another only when an expression is used sometimes in one sense and sometimes in another, even if accompanied by a contextual indicator. This constitutes resemblance. The common feature, then, is that the expression is used for both the intended meaning and an unintended meaning, without making the intended meaning apparent. The common feature is not the absence of one meaning’s predominance, which is what is termed “ambiguous.” Rather, resemblance is a positive feature: each is used for both the intended meaning and an unintended meaning. Thus, there is a resemblance between