[Explanation]
The author—may Allah have mercy on him—relates from Abu Musa al-Ashʿari ﵁ the parable coined by the Prophet ﷺ: “The likeness of what Allah has sent me with—guidance and knowledge—is that of a life-giving rain that fell upon the land.” The term ghayth means rain. That land then divides into three types:
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Lush fields: they absorb the water and produce copious grass and crops, from which people take great benefit.
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Level plains: they hold the water, and through it people profit; they drink, give drink, and irrigate.
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Saline, barren soil: it swallows the water but grows no pasture.
People respond to the knowledge and guidance Allah sent with His Prophet ﷺ in the same three ways.
The first group gains understanding of Allah’s religion; they learn and teach, so both they and others profit from their knowledge. They are like the land that brings forth herbage and pasture—people harvest from it, and their livestock graze upon it.
The second group carries the guidance but fails to comprehend it. They transmit knowledge and hadith yet possess no insight. Their likeness is the ground that stores the water: people draw and drink from it, though the earth itself produces nothing, for those narrators convey reports without true understanding.
The third group pays no heed to the knowledge and guidance the Prophet ﷺ brought, turning away in indifference; such a person derives no benefit from what the Prophet ﷺ brought.