emerging from between digested matter and blood, and changing in taste if kept for several days. We know honey only as something made by bees in hexagonal wax cells; it is not purified honey. We know silk only as something produced by silkworms, and it wears out. Yet we know that what Allah has promised His servants resembles none of these things in substance, form, or reality. Rather, it has a reality different from theirs. This belongs to the ultimate reality that we do not know. Ibn ʿAbbās said:
“Nothing in this world corresponds to what is in Paradise except the names.”
But someone may say: “The angels may know this.”
The answer is: “They do not know what has not yet been created, nor do they know everything in Paradise. Moreover, some blessings are unknown to the angels, and all of this falls within that ultimate reality.”
Even supposing that they know what we do not, it would not be ambiguous to them, though it would be ambiguous to us. For ambiguity may refer to an inherent attribute of a verse, or it may be relative: something may be ambiguous to one person but not to another.
The statements of Imam Ahmad and other early scholars may be understood in this sense. In his refutation of the Jahmiyyah, Ahmad mentioned that they cited three ambiguous verses as evidence: His words, Most High:
“He is Allah in the heavens and on earth.”
And His words:
“There is nothing like Him.”
And His words:
“Vision cannot encompass Him.”
Ahmad explained His words: