But, these people, contrary to those Quranic declarations,...

But, these people, contrary to those Quranic declarations, make it to be guided by extraneous factors, to be illuminated by some outside theories, and to be explained by something other than itself! What is that “something else”? What authority has it got? And if there is any difference in various explanations of a verse and indeed there are most serious differences-which mediator should the Quran refer to? What is the root cause of the differences in the Quran’s explanations?

It could not happen because of any difference in the meaning of a word, phrase, or sentence. The Quran has been sent down in plain Arabic, and no Arab (or Arabic-knowing non-Arab) can experience any difficulty in understanding it. Also, there is not a single verse (out of more than six thousand) which is enigmatic, obscure, or abstruse in its import; nor is there a single sentence that keeps the mind wandering in search of its meaning.

After all, the Quran is admittedly the most eloquent speech, and it is one of the essential ingredients of eloquence that the talk should be free from obscurity and abstruseness. Even those verses that are counted among the “ambiguous” ones have no ambiguity in their meanings; whatever the ambiguity, it is in the identification of the particular thing or individual from among the group to which that meaning refers.

This statement needs some elaborations: In this life, we are surrounded by matter; even our senses and faculties are closely related to it. This familiarity with matter and material things have influenced our mode of thinking. When we hear a word or a sentence, our mind races to its material meaning. When we hear, for example, the words, life, knowledge, power, hearing, sight, speech, will, pleasure, anger, creation, and order, we at once think of the material manifestations of their meanings.

Also, when we hear the words, heaven, earth, tablet, pen, throne, chair, angel and his wings, and Satan and his tribe and army, the first things that come into our minds are their material manifestations. Likewise, when we hear the sentences, “Allah created the universe” , “Allah did this” , “Allah knew it” , “Allah intended it” or “intends it” , we look at these actions in the frame of “time” because we are used to connecting every verb with a tense.