Abū Hāmid al-Ghazālī, in discussing people’s approaches to reinterpretation in his book, stated that the philosophers had taken it so far that they cast off all constraints; that the truth lies between the rigidity of the Hanbalīs and the philosophers’ lack of restraint; and that this cannot be known through revelation. Rather, you know the truth through a light cast into your heart. Revelation is then examined: whatever agrees with that, you accept; otherwise, you do not. By philosophers who resort to reinterpretation, he meant the best among them: those who hold the Messenger in too high an esteem to believe that he would lie for the sake of some benefit. Yet these people fell into something akin to what they sought to escape: they accused him of deception, obscuring the truth, and leading people astray—indeed, of presenting falsehood and concealing the truth.

When Ibn Sīnā and others like him recognized that the Messenger’s words could not bear these philosophical reinterpretations—and indeed recognized that he intended the understood meaning of his words—he adopted the approach of imaginative representation. He said that the Messenger addressed the masses through representations that appealed to their imagination, while knowing that the truth of the matter was otherwise. Thus, these people say that the messengers lied for the sake of some benefit. This is the approach of Ibn Rushd the Younger and others like him among the Bātinīs. Those among them who regarded the messengers as above lying accused them of deception and leading people astray, while those who acknowledged that they had explained the truth said that they lied for the sake of some benefit.

As for the people of knowledge and faith, they agree that the messengers said nothing but