The Qur'an is a leader and a guide when it is subjected to true reflection...

The Qur'an is a leader and a guide when it is subjected to true reflection, when it is interpreted wisely, when guidance is taken from the people who really know the Qur'an, who are firmly rooted in the sciences of the Qur'an. As long as our methodology is wrong, and as long as we do not learn how to benefit from the Qur'an, we shall not drive any profit from it. Profiteers or ignorant people sometimes read the Qur'an, and then follow up an incorrect possibility.

Just as you have probably heard in the words of Nahju 'l-baldghah, "they say the word "truth", and then set their minds of falsehood!" This is not practicing the Qur'an or bringing it to life, this is putting it to death. The Qur'an is put into practice when it is understood with a true understanding.

The Qur'an always presents its project in a general and fundamental form, but the deduction and harmonization of the particular to the universal depends on our correct understanding and conceptualization.

(al-Hujarat, 49:9) This is the Qur'an and its way of explanation; but it does not say in such-and-such a war so-and-so was in the right and the other was in the wrong. The Qur'an does not spell out names; it does not say: after forty years, more or less, a man called Mu'awiyah will appear who will fight with 'Ali, and you should fight in that war for `Ali. And neither should it enter into particulars.

The Qur'an's task is not to make a list of subjects and point out which is right and which is wrong; such a thing would be impossible. The Qur'an came to stay forever, so it has to make fundamental and universal things clear, so that falsehood can take its place face to face with truth in every age and people can act according to the criterion of these universalities. It is therefore a duty for people to open their eyes to the basic advice: "If two parties of believers fight. . .