And the imams, such as al-Shāfiʿī, Ahmad, and those before them, all discuss texts that admit of several meanings, giving preference to some meanings over others on the basis of evidence, in all foundational and subsidiary questions of knowledge. No Muslim scholar is known to have said of a text cited as evidence in a particular issue: “No one knows what this means, so it cannot be used as evidence.” Were anyone to say this, the same could be said in reply to him. If, in the well-known disputes among the imams, someone claims that the text he cites is clear and its meaning known, whereas the other text is ambiguous and no one knows its meaning, his claim can be met with an identical counterclaim.

This differs from our saying: “Some texts have a plain, clear, evident meaning, admitting of only one interpretation and leaving no room for uncertainty; others contain obscurity and ambiguity, but those firmly grounded in knowledge know their meaning.” This is a sound explanation. On this understanding, disagreement over ambiguous texts indicates that the meaning of all of them can be known. Whoever maintains that their meaning can be known sets out his evidence for this. Moreover, what the earlier and later generations have said about ambiguous texts indicates that the meaning of all of them can be known.

As for those who say that ambiguous texts are the abrogated texts, the meaning of an abrogated text is known. This view is reported from Ibn Masʿūd, Ibn ʿAbbās, Qatāda, al-Suddī, and others. Yet Ibn Masʿūd, Ibn ʿAbbās, and Qatāda are the very people reported as saying that those firmly grounded in knowledge do not know its interpretation. It is known with certainty, by the consensus of Muslims, that those firmly grounded in knowledge know both the meaning of an abrogated text and that it has been abrogated. Thus, this report from them contradicts the other report and shows that the latter is false, if the former is true; otherwise, the two reports conflict