blamed for their evil intent while seeking knowledge for which they are not qualified. The fact that these people are reproached for seeking such knowledge and denied it does not mean that blame attaches to someone whose intention is good and whom Allah has made firmly grounded in knowledge.

If it is objected:

Most of the early generations held that those firmly grounded in knowledge do not know the interpretation, as did most scholars of language. This is reported from Ibn Masʿūd, Ubayy ibn Kaʿb, Ibn ʿAbbās, ʿUrwah, Qatādah, ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, al-Farrāʾ, Abū ʿUbayd, Thaʿlab, and Ibn al-Anbārī. Ibn al-Anbārī said: In the reading of ʿAbd Allāh, it is: “Its interpretation is with Allah alone; and those firmly grounded in knowledge.” In the reading of Ubayy and Ibn ʿAbbās, it is: “And those firmly grounded in knowledge say.”

He said: Allah has revealed in His Book matters whose knowledge He has reserved exclusively for Himself, as in His statement, exalted is He:

“Say: Its knowledge is with Allah alone.”

And His statement:

“And many generations in between.”

Thus, He revealed the unambiguous passages so that the believer might believe in them and attain felicity, while the disbeliever might reject them and suffer misery. Ibn al-Anbārī said: The person who transmitted the other opinion from Mujāhid was Ibn Abī Najīh, and his transmission of Quranic commentary from Mujāhid is not sound.

The response is:

The claim that most of the early generations held this view is made without knowledge. It is not established that any of the Companions said that those firmly grounded in knowledge do not know the interpretation of the ambiguous passages. Ibn Abī Mulaykah reported from ʿĀʾishah that she said:

“Their firmness in knowledge lay in believing in its unambiguous and ambiguous passages, though they did not understand it.”