Following Ambiguous Revelation Texts and Scholarly Statements

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As previously mentioned, a fundamental issue for many people lies in the misinterpretation of ambiguous texts (mutashabihat, singular: mutashabih). Such an interpretation inevitably brings the ambiguous text into conflict with other clear and explicit passages of revelation (muhkamat, singular: muhkam).

Interestingly, this very issue is explicitly addressed in the Qur'an itself. In the seventh verse of sura Ali 'Imran, it is clearly stated that the Qur'an contains both muhkamat and mutashabihat meaning clear and ambiguous verses.

The word muhkam in Arabic means “firmly established”, while mutashabih means “resembling”, which in this context refers to something “unclear or ambiguous in the given matter and for the respective person.”

The Arabs understood and used the word mutashabih in this way because similar things are difficult to distinguish from one another, making them prone to confusion. However, if someone possesses the relevant knowledge, he can accurately differentiate between these matters.

For this reason, scholars always emphasize that such ambiguity does not always exist for everyone and to the same extent. The more knowledge and understanding a person acquires, the more mutashabihat become muhkamat for him – especially because he learns to interpret ambiguous texts correctly, as will be explained in more detail below.

If a revelation text has more than one possible meaning (mutashabih), it must be interpreted in accordance with the clear texts (muhkam) and in agreement with them.

For this reason, these muhkamat, meaning the firmly established and clear verses, are also referred to as “ummu l-kitab.” Literally translated, the Arabic word umm means “mother”, or more broadly “source”, “cause”, or “origin.”

This connection exists in the Arabic language because everything is ultimately traced back to its origin, just as a child is traced back to its mother. For this reason, scholars formulated the principle: “The mutashabihat must be referred back to the muhkamat.”

Then, in the same verse, those who carry deviation in their hearts are described. These are the people who deliberately and with evil intent misinterpret ambiguous passages in contradiction to the many clear verses.

Al-Bukhari narrates in his Sahih collection from the wife of the Prophet, 'A'ishah رضي الله عنها, that the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم recited this verse and then said to her:

فَإِذَا رَأَيْتِ الَّذِينَ يَتَّبِعُونَ مَا تَشَابَهَ مِنْهُ فَأُولَئِكِ الَّذِينَ سَمَّى اللَّهُ فَاحْذَرُوهُمْ

If you see those (singular) who follow what is mutashabih from it, then they are the ones whom Allah has named, so beware of them.

In another narration of this hadith recorded by Muslim, the same wording is found, but the address is in the plural form:

إِذَا رَأَيْتم الَّذِينَ ...

If you see those (plural) …

The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم thus warned both his wife and his entire community against those who follow ambiguous texts. The instruction to beware of these people is clearly directed at all Muslims, which is why the address in the second narration is also formulated in the plural.

Furthermore, in connection with the previously mentioned verse from sura Ali 'Imran, an incident has been narrated that clearly illustrates this entire issue.

Ibnu Hisham mentions the following account in his well-known prophetic biography/sirah regarding a delegation of Christians from Najran:

وَيَحْتَجّونَ فِي قَوْلِهِمْ (إنّهُ ثَالِثُ ثَلَاثَةٍ) بِقَوْلِ اللّهِ فَعَلْنَا ، وَأَمَرْنَا ، وَخَلَقْنَا ، وَقَضَيْنَا . فَيَقُولُونَ لَوْ كَانَ وَاحِدًا مَا قَالَ إلّا فَعَلْتُ وَقَضَيْت ، وَأَمَرْت ، وَخَلَقْت ؛ وَلَكِنّهُ هُوَ وَعِيسَى وَمَرْيَمُ.

... And they argued for their claim that “Allah is the third of three” with the words of Allah (in the Qur'an): “We made”, “We commanded”, “We created”, “We decreed.”

They meant by this: “If He were one, He would have only said 'I' in all of these. But rather, it is Him, 'Isa (Jesus), and Maryam (Mary).”

Ibnu Hisham explains here how those Christian envoys argued using ambiguous texts from the Qur'an. According to their reasoning, Allah سبحانه وتعالى speaks of Himself in the plural, which they took as confirmation of the Trinity.

However, in Arabic, the word “We” (nahnu) can have two meanings:

1. Someone who reports from a group of people to which he himself belongs – meaning a literal plurality of persons.
2. The so-called Majestic Plural, where a single person speaks of himself in the plural form. This usage is also common in English and was historically used for monarchs.

The word “We” is therefore mutashabih, meaning ambiguous. As can be clearly seen here, the word, when used in the Qur'an, is certainly not unclear, even for someone with basic knowledge of Islam, despite the fact that it carries two different meanings in the language itself.

The reader of the Qur'an is obligated to refer the ambiguous back to the clear¹²². If he doesn't do this, it will inevitably lead to strong contradictions and completely false conclusions.

Regarding the previously mentioned case of the word “We”, the Qur'an for example states in a verse that almost every Muslim is familiar with:

Furthermore, there are countless verses in the Qur'an that express this meaning explicitly and unequivocally. The problem of those Christian envoys was not that they had no knowledge of these verses at all. It can be ruled out that they had never heard of the rejection of the Trinity in the Qur'an, nor that not a single text had been conveyed to them during discussions about Islam.

At the very latest, in the conversations described by Ibnu Hisham, they should have immediately conceded, given the clarity of the matter. However, they irrationally clung to their false interpretation in order to avoid abandoning their own argumentation. This exact approach was also adopted by many sects in early Islamic history.

The same faulty methodology can be observed in the question discussed in this book – whether a person can be called a Muslim despite practicing polytheism. The clear and numerous Islamic texts on this matter explicitly reject such a notion.

In Islamic scholarship, it has always been a theological principle that ambiguous passages must never be interpreted in a way that contradicts the firm and immutable fundamentals of the religion, known as kulliyyat. How, then, could this principle not apply to the very foundation upon which the entire religion is built and around which all its laws and matters revolve?

Whoever insists on isolating individual texts and taking them out of context will always find a way to do so – just like the Christian envoys or various early Islamic sects.

Among the thousands of narrations from the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم, it is of course not uncommon to find ambiguous texts that can be misused for such purposes.

The early Muslim scholars were fully aware of the foundation of Islam and its core principles (kulliyyat). For this reason, it was self-evident to them that such texts must always be interpreted in accordance with the Qur'an and Sunnah. If an ambiguous text contained a statement that was unclear to them, Muslim scholars sought to interpret it in various ways – but deliberately avoided any interpretation that would contradict the foundation of faith. The various narrated interpretations of some of these texts clearly demonstrate this scholarly effort in Islamic scholarship.

As time progressed and ignorance about the original texts increased, confusion regarding the foundation and core principles of Islam became more common among its followers. For this reason, many people today struggle to interpret ambiguous texts correctly. It is difficult to interpret such texts in accordance with Islamic fundamental principles if one has not properly understood these principles in the first place.

In modern times, this situation has developed to the extent that even educated individuals now cite specific hadiths to support the false claim that an ignorant polytheist can still be considered a Muslim. Such people disregard thousands of clear shari'ah texts, yet at the same time, they mislead the public into believing that this is a form of legitimate ijtihad, meaning a valid legal derivation or legal reasoning.

This, despite the fact that legitimate legal derivations can only exist in matters for which no clear text exists in the first place! Precisely for this reason, in actual cases of legitimate ijtihad, there have always been different outcomes, which led to differences of opinion among scholars in jurisprudence. In contrast to differences of opinion regarding consensual beliefs, such disagreements in ijtihad are not considered reprehensible or something to be rejected.

For this reason, scholars formulated the clear principle:

لا اجتهادَ مع النصّ

There is no ijtihad in the presence of a clear text¹²³.

It is remarkable that some individuals who are regarded as scholars today invalidate this very rule when it comes to clear fundamental matters of faith, while at the same time, they teach and insist on its application in secondary issues of hadith sciences and Islamic jurisprudence – a glaring contradiction.

Many uneducated people, on the other hand, readily accept such pseudo-arguments. For most of them, it seems entirely irrelevant how absurd a statement is, as long as it comes from one of their highly regarded scholars. For individuals with this mindset, the possibility of error in such scholars is practically ruled out altogether. This results in a personality cult, which has no place in Islam, as a Muslim is obligated to adhere to the clear text and is certainly not permitted to give precedence to a scholar's statement over a clear text.

To illustrate the practical relevance of this issue, the following section will present some ambiguous texts and claims as examples. From these, it will be easy to infer further similar cases. The goal is explicitly not to list and discuss all ambiguous texts or every conceivable pseudo-argument. This would not be possible anyway, as, among the numerous narrations, there will always be texts that can be taken out of context.