the reality of those things is not identical to that of their worldly counterparts. Rather, there is a tremendous difference between them despite their resemblance, as in His words:

“And they will be given it in a similar form.”

According to one of the two interpretations, it resembles what is in this world without being identical to it. Thus, the names of those realities resemble the names of these realities, just as the realities themselves resemble one another in certain respects. When those names are used in addressing us, we understand them through what the two have in common. Yet those realities have a distinctive nature that we cannot apprehend in this world. We have no means of apprehending it, since we have experienced neither those realities themselves nor anything resembling them in every respect. Those realities, as they truly are, constitute the fulfilment of what Allah has told us.

This also refutes the Jews, Christians, and Sabians, whether philosophers or others, who deny that there is eating, drinking, clothing, or sexual intercourse in Paradise, and reject the existence of what the Quran describes. Someone who enters Islam but acts hypocritically toward the believers interprets these descriptions as parables intended to convey spiritual bliss, if he belongs to the Sabian philosophers who deny bodily resurrection. If he belongs to the hypocrites of the two faiths who affirm bodily resurrection, he interprets them as conveying the bliss of Paradise consisting of spiritual enjoyment, pleasing sounds, and fragrant scents. Thus, every misguided person distorts words from their proper meanings to conform to what he believes to be real.

In doing so, he also follows what is ambiguous: the names resemble one another, and the things named resemble one another, yet their differences are greater than their similarities. Thus these people follow this