the Emigrants and the Helpers, and those who followed them in righteousness, adopt three approaches to the Messenger’s words: imaginative representation, reinterpretation, and attributing ignorance.

Those who adopt imaginative representation are the philosophers and the Bātiniyya. They say that he conjured up images of things that have no underlying reality, and that imaginative representation is the distinctive characteristic of prophethood.

(The approach of reinterpretation)
This is the approach of the speculative theologians among the Jahmiyya, the Muʿtazila, and their followers. They say that his statements have interpretations contrary to what their wording indicates and what is understood from it. Although he did not explain his intended meaning or clarify the truth that must be believed, his purpose, they maintain, was to prompt rational inquiry, so that people would discover the truth through their own reason and strive to reinterpret his words to accord with their own views, thereby earning a reward. Thus, his purpose was not to provide them with clarification, guidance, direction, and instruction, but rather to obscure and confuse. He did not acquaint them with the truth, so that they would arrive at it through their own reason and then recognize that his words were not intended to clarify it. They therefore regard themselves as better off in terms of knowledge without his words than with them.

Those mentioned earlier, such as Ibn Sīnā and others like him, object to this group’s position. They say that his expressions are numerous and explicit, and cannot admit reinterpretation; rather, his intention was imaginative representation and to make people believe things to be otherwise than they actually are.

As for the third group, who claim to be followers of the early generations, they say that the Messenger did not know the meaning of these verses revealed to him, nor did his Companions