on Quranic exegesis is among the best-known works, and its transmission from him is reliably established through the narrations of Ma‘mar and Sa‘īd ibn Abī ‘Arūbah. For this reason, most authors of Quranic commentaries cite his views, since they are authentically transmitted from him. Yet the entire Quran—both its clear and its ambiguous passages—is explained in it.

What made the statement that none but Allah knows the interpretation of the ambiguous passages widespread among Ahl al-Sunnah was the emergence of false interpretations advanced by the people of innovation, such as the Jahmiyyah and the Qadariyyah among the Mu‘tazilah and others. They began interpreting the Quran according to their own unsound opinions. This is a well-known approach among the people of innovation: they explain the Quran according to their own rational judgments and linguistic interpretations. Thus, the Quranic commentaries of the Mu‘tazilah are filled with interpretations of the texts affirming the divine attributes and decree that depart from what Allah and His Messenger intended. It was these corrupt interpretations that the early generations and the leading scholars condemned, as Imam Ahmad stated in his refutation of the heretics and the Jahmiyyah concerning the ambiguous passages of the Quran about which they entertained doubts and which they interpreted contrary to their true meaning. This, then, is the kind of interpretation that the early generations and the leading scholars condemned.

After them came people who affiliated themselves with the Sunnah without a thorough knowledge of it or of what contradicts it. They supposed that none but Allah knows the meaning of the ambiguous passages. They also assumed that “interpretation” bore the meaning assigned to it in the terminology of later scholars: diverting an expression from its more likely meaning to a less likely one. Thus, in one place they assert and defend the view that, as for the ambiguous passages, no one knows