Abu Nuʿaym and Khallad ibn Yahya related to us, saying: ʿUmar ibn Dharr narrated to us, from his father, from Saʿid ibn Jubayr, from Ibn ʿAbbas (may Allah be pleased with them), that the Prophet ﷺ said to Gabriel, upon him be peace, “What has kept you from visiting us more often than you do?” Thereupon the verse was revealed: “We do not descend except by the command of your Lord; to Him belongs whatever is before us and whatever is behind us” (19:64).

Jabir ibn ʿAbd Allah (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Prophet ﷺ asked about those who had fallen at Uhud, “Which of them had memorised more of the Quran?” Whenever someone was pointed out, he would place that person first in the grave.

Abu ʿAbd Allah said, “Some scholars have observed that most people’s mistakes arise from such matters: they do not distinguish the majāz (figurative usage) from the taḥqīq (literal sense), the fiʿl (agent) from the mafʿūl (object), or the waṣf (descriptive phrase) from the ṣifah (actual attribute). They have not understood why a statement becomes falsehood or why another becomes truth.

“As for separating the figurative from the literal: consider the Prophet’s ﷺ remark about a horse, ‘I found it to be an ocean’—a saying that circulates among people. Its literal sense is simply that the horse’s gait is excellent. Or someone may say, ‘Allah’s knowledge is with us and within us, and I am in Allah’s knowledge,’ meaning only that Allah knows us—that is the literal sense. Or one may say, ‘The river runs,’ intending that the water runs—and that is the literal sense. Instances of this sort abound in language.”