For, as expressed by the Qur’an, the sayings and commands of...

For, as expressed by the Qur’an, the sayings and commands of the Prophet are authoritative [ hujjah ] and binding. The hadith s narrated from the possess the same authority as those of the Prophet. Our reason for this is, among others, the prophetic Hadith al-Thaqalayn , whose chains of transmission exceed the limit of tawatur . We have explained this in the introduction to the first volume of “ Tafsir al-Mizan ”.

(In this connection you may also refer to the third volume, where we have spoken thoroughly of the univocal [ muhkam ] and the equivocal [ mutashabih ] verses of the Qur’an.) But as to the , their , and other authorities of Qur’anic exegesis where they give their independent views, they cannot be relied on—except where their views agree with the hadith s related from the Prophet and the . For, their views are conjectures [ ijtihad ] that are, at best, valid for themselves.

We consider their conjectures [ ijtihad ] devoid of any value—as is also the case with regard to the unverifiable hadith s attributed to the Prophet and the Imams. We have chosen the aforementioned method of interpretation based on a number of hadith s reported from the Prophet and the that explain that the Qur’an is self-sufficient in conveying its meaning. Some examples are as follows.

“Indeed the different parts of the Qur’an affirm one another.”[^3] “The different parts of the Qur’an speak through [the medium of] one another.”[^4] “The different parts of the Qur’an testify to the meaning of one another.” ^5 It is the right and appropriate method that has been granted to us by the blessing of the hadith s. Without doubt, the Qur’an has, like any other work of literature, its peculiar order and structure that render it intelligible.

The only instances in the Qur’an that have proven inscrutable to our understanding are the separate letters . From this, we may infer that, unlike all the other verses of the Qur’an, the meaning they convey is enigmatic and is not based on the rules of the Arabic language.