and the like. Such allusions involve drawing parallels and reasoning by analogy: relating cases not explicitly addressed in a text to those that are, much as jurists do when drawing parallels and reasoning by analogy in legal rulings. Here, however, this is employed in encouragement and warning, the merits of deeds, the ranks of men, and similar matters. If an “analogical allusion” constitutes a valid analogy, it is good and acceptable. If it resembles a weak analogy, it receives the same judgment. But if it distorts words by taking them out of their proper contexts and interprets them contrary to their true meaning, it belongs to the same category as the discourse of the Qarmatians, the Bātiniyyah, and the Jahmiyyah. Reflect carefully on this, for I have explained it in “The Principle of Allusions.”

(The third aspect)

Another contradiction is that he said this interpretation was transmitted from Ibn ‘Abbās, Anas, and Sālim, yet he mentioned only three interpretations.

(The first)

He is the Guide of the inhabitants of the heavens and the earth. Yet he deemed this interpretation weak. If this weak interpretation is what was transmitted, then what a fruitless endeavour! For in everything he has said up to this point, he has transmitted nothing from the early generations except this interpretation, which he himself has deemed weak and discredited.

If, however, what was transmitted from these three is that He illuminates the heavens with the heavenly bodies, then he has contradicted himself in another respect. He subsequently mentioned that another report from Ibn ‘Abbās, as well as reports from Abū al-‘Āliyah and al-Hasan, states that He illuminates them with the sun, moon, and stars. This entails that what was initially transmitted from Ibn ‘Abbās and the other two must differ from what was transmitted from him in another report and from those not mentioned alongside him in the first.