ambiguity there may be. The plural form He uses thus makes clear the greatness, names and attributes that are His due, and the obedience owed to Him by His creatures, angels and others. As for the actual realities to which this points—the realities of His names and attributes, and the hosts He employs in His acts—none but He knows them:

“And none knows the hosts of your Lord except Him.”

This belongs to the ultimate reality of the ambiguous passages, which Allah alone knows. It is otherwise with a human king: when he says, “We have ordered that you be given a grant,” it is understood that he and his assistants—such as his secretary, chamberlain, servant and others—have been instructed accordingly. One may also know the beliefs, intentions and the like from which that action proceeded.

Allah—glorified and exalted is He—does not disclose to His servants the actual realities of His attributes and the characteristics of the Last Day about which He has informed them. Nor do they know the actual realities of the wisdom He intends through His creation and command, or of the will and power from which these proceed.

This makes clear that ambiguity occurs in univocal terms just as it occurs in homonymous terms that are not univocal, even when the ambiguity is removed by a qualification or identification that distinguishes one of the two kinds. For example, when it is said:

“Therein are rivers of water,”

the water is specifically associated with Paradise, so the distinction between it and the water of this world becomes clear. Yet the actual reality of what distinguishes that water remains unknown to us. Together with what Allah has prepared for His righteous servants—what no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no human heart has conceived—it belongs to the ultimate reality that Allah alone knows.