he gains knowledge of something else that he had not known before and comes to understand meanings of Allah’s names and signs that he had not previously understood. As stated in the report:

“Whoever acts upon what he knows, Allah grants him knowledge of what he did not know.”

This is something every believer experiences within himself. In the Sahīh, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“The one who remembers his Lord and the one who does not remember his Lord are like the living and the dead.”

Allah Most High says:

“When His verses are recited to them, they increase them in faith.”

This is because they increase their knowledge of what they had not previously known and increase their actions based on that knowledge. They also increase their remembrance of what they had forgotten and their actions in response to that reminder. The same applies to the signs that people witness throughout the horizons and within themselves.

Allah Most High says:

“We will show them Our signs throughout the horizons and within themselves until it becomes clear to them that it is the truth.”

That is, that the Quran is true. Then Allah Most High says:

“Is it not enough that your Lord is a witness over all things?”

For Allah has borne witness in the Quran to what He has related, and the believer has believed it. He then showed them signs throughout the horizons and within themselves that point to the very things He related in the Quran. These signs thus made clear to them that the Quran is true, in addition to what they had already attained.

Allah Most High also says:

“Have they not looked at the heaven above them—how We built it and adorned it, and how it has no rifts? And the earth—We spread it out, set firm mountains upon it, and caused every delightful kind of plant to grow in it, as an insight and a reminder for every servant who turns to Allah.”

Both the signs in creation and the recited verses provide insight and a reminder: insight dispels blindness, and reminders dispel heedlessness. Thus, one who did not know is given insight and comes to know, while one who knew but forgot is reminded. A person may read a surah many times—even Sūrat al-Fātihah—and, in the course of doing so, meanings become apparent to him that had never occurred to him before, as though it had been revealed at that very moment. He then believes in those meanings, and his knowledge increases