as well as in the passages dealing with divine decree, and they allegorically reinterpret the verses that speak of the divine attributes. Some later Ashʿarites have sided with them regarding certain attributes, and others have followed them in parts of what concerns the Hereafter. Still other groups within the ummah—though the sunnah generally prevails among them—also resort to reinterpretation in places where their tafsir amounts to nothing more than distorting words from their proper contexts.

Those who claimed to possess knowledge of taʾwīl—among them a number of the early Salaf, some of Ahl al-Sunnah, and most speculative theologians and sectarians—likewise held that the revealed texts point to an understanding of the Qur’an’s meanings. They deemed it a flaw, indeed something reprehensible, for God to address His servants with words that they recite and chant yet fail to comprehend. In the principle they cited, both textual and rational evidence supports them; but they erred concerning the sense of taʾwīl that God has negated and the taʾwīl they themselves affirmed. Through this door their innovators slipped in and proceeded to wrest words from their places. Hence the first camp stayed closer to silence and safety—though tinged with a degree of ignorance—whereas the second spoke more, argued more, yet fabricated against God, spoke about Him without knowledge, and deviated with respect to His names and His signs. Such is the matter, and the root of the confusion is the shared use of the term “taʾwīl.”

For in the language of the later jurists, theologians, hadith scholars, Sufis, and the like, “taʾwīl” means diverting a word from its more obvious sense to a less likely one because of an accompanying proof. This is the taʾwīl discussed in legal theory and in points of dispute. Thus, when one of them says, “This hadith—or this text—is subject to taʾwīl; it is to be understood in such-and-such a way,” another replies, “That is a kind of taʾwīl, and taʾwīl demands evidence.”

The interpreter therefore has two duties: first, to show that the wording can indeed bear the meaning he claims for it; and second, to present the proof that obliges one to divert the text to that meaning.