The reply is:

Most of the differences concerning the Quran reliably reported from the Companions—and indeed from the leading Successors—fall into several categories:

• (The first is that each expresses the meaning of a name in wording different from that used by the other. The referent is one and the same, yet each name conveys a meaning that the other does not, while both are true. This is like referring to Allah Most High by His most beautiful names, to the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, by his names, and to the glorious Quran by its names. Allah Most High says:

“Say, ‘Call upon Allah or call upon the Most Merciful. Whichever name you call upon, to Him belong the most beautiful names.’”

Thus, when one says, “the Most Merciful, the Especially Merciful, the Sovereign, the Most Holy, the Source of Peace,” these are all names of one and the same Being, glorified and exalted is He, although each name denotes an attribute of Allah Most High that the other does not.

An example of “this interpretation” is what scholars have said in explaining “the straight path.” One says it is Islam; another says it is the Quran, meaning following the Quran; another says it is the Sunnah and the community; another says it is the path of servitude to Allah; and another says it is obedience to Allah and His Messenger. It is well known that the straight path can be described by all these attributes and called by all these names. Each scholar, however, directed his audience to an attribute by which the path could be recognized and from the knowledge of which they could benefit.