most of the early generations among the Companions and their successors, as well as a group of language scholars. The second is the view of a group of earlier and later scholars and the majority of linguists. Reports from the early generations are preserved with their chains of transmission in works of Quranic commentary containing such chains, in works on the Sunnah, and elsewhere. We have already recorded many reports on this subject with their chains of transmission.

The explanation of “al-Samad” as the One who has no hollow interior is well known from Ibn Masʿūd, both as his own statement and as a statement attributed to the Prophet. It is also reported from Ibn ʿAbbās, al-Hasan al-Basrī, Mujāhid, Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, ʿIkrimah, al-Dahhāk, al-Suddī, and Qatādah. Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib expressed a similar meaning, saying: “He is the One who has no internal contents.” Likewise, Ibn Masʿūd said: “He is the One who has no internal organs.” Al-Shaʿbī similarly said: “He is the One who neither eats nor drinks.” Muhammad ibn Kaʿb al-Qurazī and ʿIkrimah are reported to have said: “He is the One from whom nothing issues.” Maysarah is reported to have said: “He is the Solid One.”

Ibn Qutaybah said: “According to this explanation, it is as though the letter dāl has replaced a tāʾ. The word samt (silence) is related to this.”

I say: There is no substitution here. Rather, this is an instance of al-ishtiqāq al-akbar (the broadest form of derivation). Allah willing, we shall explain the basis of this interpretation in terms of derivation and language.

The transmitted hadith concerning the occasion on which this verse was revealed was narrated by Imam Ahmad in al-Musnad and elsewhere, through Abū Saʿd al-Saghānī, who said: “Abū Jaʿfar al-Rāzī narrated to us