and call upon whomever you can besides Allah, if you are truthful.’ This is a challenge that renders every creature utterly incapable of responding.

He, exalted is He, also says,

‘But rather as a confirmation of that which is before it,’
—that is, it confirms what came before it—

‘and as a detailed exposition of the Scripture,’
—that is, it clarifies the Scripture itself. Thus He informs us that it both confirms what preceded it and elucidates the Scripture, the word “Scripture” here being a generic term. He then challenged those who said, “He invented it,” and showed that they are the ones who are actually inventing, for He said,

‘Rather, they have denied that whose knowledge they could not encompass, and whose interpretation has not yet reached them’ (Yunus 10:39).

In other words, they have rejected the Quran, whose knowledge they have not fully grasped and whose interpretation has yet to come to them. He therefore differentiates between encompassing its knowledge and the advent of its interpretation. It follows that people of knowledge and faith may indeed encompass its knowledge even though its interpretation has not yet arrived, and that encompassing the Quran’s knowledge is not the same as the coming of its interpretation. To encompass its knowledge is to understand completely the meanings of its wording, whereas the coming of the interpretation is the actual occurrence of what it foretells. There is a difference between knowing a report and witnessing the thing reported: knowing the report means understanding the Quran’s explanation, while knowing the thing reported means grasping its interpretation.

The subtle point here is that a report, in terms of its meaning, is an intelligible form that exists in the knower’s mind—such as the human intellect—yet that same meaning corresponds to a concrete reality that exists outside the mind. The wording first points to the mental meaning, and through that it either mediates to, or directly indicates, the external reality. The interpretation (taʾwīl) is that external reality, whereas knowing its commentary and meaning is merely knowing the intelligible form. This is what we clarified earlier: Allah sent down the Quran so that it would be learned, understood, comprehended, pondered, and reflected upon—its clear and its ambiguous passages alike—even if one does not yet know its full interpretation.

Allah makes this clear when He says about the unbelievers,

‘When you recite the Quran, We place between you and those who do not believe in the Hereafter a hidden barrier; and We place coverings upon their hearts lest they understand it, and deafness in their ears. And when you mention your Lord alone in the Quran, they turn away in aversion’ (al-Isrāʾ 17:45-46).

Thus He informs—by way of censuring the idolaters—that when the Quran is recited to them He places a hidden veil between their eyes and the Messenger, and He lays coverings over their hearts so that