to ever higher ranks in proportion to his progress in this knowledge. This concerns “knowledge of Allah’s names and attributes.”

As for “understanding the Quran,” he constantly reflects on its meanings and ponders its wording, finding in its meanings and judgments all he needs, without recourse to human discourse. Whenever he hears anything of people’s statements or learning, he measures it against the Quran. If the Quran attests to its soundness, he accepts it; otherwise, he rejects it. If it attests neither to its acceptance nor to its rejection, he suspends judgment. His attention remains devoted to what his Lord intends by His words.

He does not direct his efforts towards those fields of learning that have veiled most people from the realities of the Quran: obsessive concern with the articulation of its letters, their light or emphatic pronunciation, vowel inclination, and long, short, or intermediate vowel prolongations, and other such matters. This places a barrier before hearts, cutting them off from understanding what the Lord intends by His words.

The same applies to preoccupation with pronouncing a-andhartahum (“whether you warn them”), giving the letter mīm in ‘alayhim (“upon them”) a u-vowel and connecting it to a wāw, and giving its hā’ an i-vowel or a u-vowel, and similar matters. The same applies to attending to melody and beautifying the voice, and to pursuing the various possibilities of grammatical analysis and devising strained interpretations that resemble riddles and puzzles more than clear exposition.