“He who reads the Quran in fewer than three days does not comprehend it.” (1)

Indeed, he remained silent about what is even graver and more reprehensible: Kurz asked his Lord to grant him knowledge of Allah’s Greatest Name, and then asked to be given the strength to complete the Quran in the manner mentioned! This too is among the prohibited excesses in supplication, referred to in the Prophet’s saying, peace and blessings be upon him:

“There will be people who exceed the proper bounds in supplication.”

It is cited in Ṣaḥīḥ Abī Dāwūd (1330).

In short, this phrase has been transmitted from Ibn Masʿūd, may Allah be pleased with him, in the two wordings previously mentioned:

The first: “But I am able to do whatever I will.”

The other: “But I am able to do that.”

The first wording is more authentic in its chain of transmission, as is apparent. Yet the other—despite its authentic chain of transmission—corresponds exactly to the wording of the verse: “And He is fully able to gather them whenever He wills.” For the meaning is: whenever He wills that gathering. The eminent scholar al-Ālūsī said in Rūḥ al-Maʿānī:

“‘Whenever’ is connected to what precedes it, not to ‘fully able,’ for what is qualified by His will is His gathering, exalted is He, not His power, glorified is He.”

I say: In light of his exegesis of the verse, we say that the demonstrative pronoun in the hadith: