In short, Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 728 AH) says that the word taʾwil is used with three definitions:
- Later technical usage: (Sarf al-lafdh ʿan al-iḥtimāl al-rājiḥ ilā al-marjūḥ) Taʾwil means diverting a wording from its stronger meaning to a weaker meaning because of a proof. This is the usage of many later scholars and is the kind of taʾwil the Salaf rejected.
- Explanation of speech (Tafsir al-kalam): Taʾwil means the explanation of the text, the same as tafsir, whether it agrees with the apparent meaning or not. This is the meaning used by the majority of the mufassirun, and it is the taʾwil known by those firmly grounded in knowledge.
- The reality itself (Al-haqiqah Al-murādah): Taʾwil refers to the actual reality or outcome that the words point to, such as the realities of the Hereafter. This is the taʾwil that none knows except Allah, like the unseen realities and the true “how” of the divine attributes.
The word taʾwil is used with three meanings.
The first: taʾwil, in the terminology of many later scholars, means diverting a wording from its stronger possible meaning to its weaker possible meaning because of a proof that accompanies it. According to this terminology, the meaning of the wording that agrees with its apparent indication is not called taʾwil.
They thought that what Allah intended by the word taʾwil was this, and that the texts have a taʾwil that is different from their apparent indication, which none knows except Allah, or which is known to those who perform taʾwil.
Then many of them say, the texts run on their apparent meaning, and that their apparent meaning is intended, while also saying that they have a taʾwil in this sense that none knows except Allah. This is a contradiction that many of those ascribed to the Sunnah from the followers of the four imams and others have fallen into.
The second meaning: that taʾwil is the explanation of speech, whether it agrees with the apparent meaning or not. This is the meaning of taʾwil in the terminology of the majority of the mufassirun and others.
This taʾwil is known by the firmly grounded in knowledge, and it agrees with the view of those from the Salaf who stopped on the saying of Allah, (وَمَا يَعْلَمُ تَأْوِيلَهُ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَالرَّاسِخُونَ فِي الْعِلْمِ) “And none knows its taʾwil except Allah and those firmly grounded in knowledge” (Aal Imran 7).
This was transmitted from Ibn Abbas (d. 68 AH), Mujahid (d. 104 AH), Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 241 AH), Muhammad ibn Jaʿfar ibn al Zubayr (d. 132 AH), Muhammad ibn Ishaq (d. 150 AH), Ibn Qutaybah (d. 276 AH) and others. Both of these positions are correct in a certain respect, as we have explained elsewhere, and for this reason both were transmitted from Ibn Abbas, and both are correct.
The third meaning: that taʾwil is the reality to which the speech refers, even if it agrees with its apparent wording. So the taʾwil of what Allah informed about of eating, drinking, clothing, marriage, the coming of the Hour, and other matters of the Hereafter is the realities that exist in themselves, not what is imagined of their meanings in minds and expressed upon tongues.
This is the taʾwil in the language of the Quran, as Allah said about Yusuf, (هَذَا تَأْوِيلُ رُؤْيَايَ مِنْ قَبْلُ قَدْ جَعَلَهَا رَبِّي حَقًّا) “My father, this is the taʾwil of my dream before. My Lord has made it true” (Yusuf 100).
And He said, (هَلْ يَنْظُرُونَ إِلَّا تَأْوِيلَهُ يَوْمَ يَأْتِي تَأْوِيلُهُ يَقُولُ الَّذِينَ نَسُوهُ مِنْ قَبْلُ قَدْ جَاءَتْ رُسُلُ رَبِّنَا بِالْحَقِّ) “Do they await except its taʾwil? The Day its taʾwil comes, those who forgot it before will say, the messengers of our Lord came with the truth” (al Aʿraf 53).
And He said, (فَإِنْ تَنَازَعْتُمْ فِي شَيْءٍ فَرُدُّوهُ إِلَى اللَّهِ وَالرَّسُولِ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ تُؤْمِنُونَ بِاللَّهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الْآخِرِ ذَلِكَ خَيْرٌ وَأَحْسَنُ تَأْوِيلًا) “If you dispute in anything, refer it to Allah and the Messenger if you believe in Allah and the Last Day. That is better and best in taʾwil” (al Nisa 59).
This taʾwil is the one that none knows except Allah.
The taʾwil of the attributes is the reality of them that Allah alone knows. It is the unknown how that the Salaf spoke of, such as Malik ibn Anas (d. 179 AH) and others who said: al istiwa is known, and the how is unknown. They meant that the istiwa is known in its meaning and explanation, and can be translated into another language. This is from the taʾwil that is known by the firmly grounded in knowledge. But the how of that istiwa is the taʾwil that none knows except Allah.
It was narrated from Ibn Abbas what Abd al Razzaq (d. 211 AH) and others mentioned in their tafsir from him that he said: “The tafsir of the Quran is on four types. A tafsir that the Arabs know from their language, a tafsir that no one has an excuse to be ignorant of, a tafsir that is known by the scholars, and a tafsir that none knows except Allah. Whoever claims to know it is a liar.”
This is like the saying of Allah, (فَلَا تَعْلَمُ نَفْسٌ مَا أُخْفِيَ لَهُمْ مِنْ قُرَّةِ أَعْيُنٍ) “No soul knows what has been hidden for them of comfort for eyes” (al Sajda 17). And the saying of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, that Allah the Exalted said, “I have prepared for My righteous servants what no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and has not occurred to the heart of any person.”
This includes knowledge of the time of the Hour and similar matters. This is from the taʾwil that none knows except Allah, even though we understand the meanings of what we are addressed with, and we understand from the speech what is intended for us to understand.
As Allah said, (أَفَلَا يَتَدَبَّرُونَ الْقُرْآنَ أَمْ عَلَى قُلُوبٍ أَقْفَالُهَا) “Do they not ponder over the Quran, or are there locks upon their hearts?” (Muhammad 24).
And He said, (أَفَلَمْ يَدَّبَّرُوا الْقَوْلَ) “Do they not ponder over the word?” (al Muʾminun 68).
He commanded pondering the whole Quran, not only part of it.
Abu Abd al Rahman al Sulami (d. 74 AH) said: Those who used to teach us the Quran, like Uthman ibn Affan (d. 35 AH), Abd Allah ibn Masʿud (d. 32 AH), and others, told us that when they learned ten verses from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, they would not move beyond them until they learned what they contained of knowledge and action. They said: so we learned the Quran, knowledge, and action together.
Mujahid (d. 104 AH) said: I presented the mushaf to Ibn Abbas from its opening to its ending, stopping at each verse and asking him about it.
Al Shaʿbi (d. 103 AH) said: No one invents an innovation except that in the Book of Allah there is clarification of it.
Masruq (d. 63 AH) said: “We did not ask the companions of Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, about anything except that its knowledge was in the Quran, but our knowledge was too limited to grasp it.”
Fatāwā Ḥamawiyyah al-Kubrā by Ibn Taymiyyah Pages 107-111
Ibn Taymiyyah says that the word taʾwil was misunderstood by later groups. The Salaf used it to mean tafsir or the actual reality of what Allah informed about. The Jahmiyyah and Batiniyyah twisted it to mean diverting texts from their real meaning, which he rejects as falsehood and distortion.
The correct approach is: the apparent meanings of the texts are true, their tafsir is known to the scholars, but the how of Allah’s attributes and unseen realities is known only to Allah. Any invented taʾwil that contradicts the apparent meaning is misguidance, hypocrisy, and lying upon Allah and His Messenger.
Translation: Ibn Taymiyyah says: You find such people confused regarding the saying of Allah, “And none knows its taʾwil except Allah, and those firmly grounded in knowledge say, we believe in it, all of it is from our Lord, and none take heed except people of understanding” (Aal Imran 7). They assumed that what is meant by taʾwil here is diverting the texts away from what they indicate.
A group of them say that those firmly grounded in knowledge know this taʾwil, and they permit such interpretations which are the interpreations of the Jahmiyyah who deny the attributes. Some of them at times obligate such interpretations, at times allow them, and at times even prohibit them for certain people or in certain circumstances because of some condition.
To the extent that the heretics from the philosophers, the Sufis, and those like them may prohibit interpretations, not out of faith and belief in what they convey, but because they know that such interpretations have no sound principle and that revealing them corrupts the people. They see holding back from them as being in the interest of the people, even if they claim it to be truth in itself.
These people may even say that the messengers spoke to the creation with words that do not indicate the truth, because the interests of the people would not be fulfilled except in that way. They say those interests could only be fulfilled by letting the people imagine in themselves things that have no external existence, in order to bring about some perceived benefit, just as a sleeper, or a healthy person, or someone of weak intellect is made to imagine what has no existence for some reason of relevance and benefit.
Another group says that this taʾwil is known only to Allah.
Then from these are those who say that the texts are carried upon their apparent meanings, and they argue against the false interpretations in every way.
It is known that if a text had a taʾwil that contradicted its apparent meaning, it would not be carried upon its apparent meaning. And what is carried upon its apparent meaning does not have a taʾwil contradicting it, let alone that it be said Allah knows it or someone else knows it.
Rather, such a taʾwil is spoken about as Allah said, “Say, do you inform Allah of something He does not know in the heavens or in the earth?” (Yunus 18). For what is non existent, Allah only knows it as non existent. He does not know it as existent and real.
The reason for this confusion is that the word taʾwil in the usage of these disputants does not mean what taʾwil means in the Quran, nor in the usage of the early mufassirun of the Quran. For them, the word taʾwil meant tafsir. This kind of taʾwil is known to whoever knows the tafsir of the Quran.
For this reason, when Mujahid (d. 104 AH) who was the imam of the mufassirun, had asked Ibn Abbas (d. 68 AH) about the tafsir of the whole Quran, and Ibn Abbas explained it to him, Mujahid would say that the firmly grounded in knowledge know the taʾwil, meaning the tafsir.
This is what Ibn Qutaybah (d. 276 AH) and others intended when they said that the firmly grounded in knowledge know the taʾwil. What they meant by it was tafsir, and they affirmed the attributes, not like the taʾwil of the Jahmiyyah who denied the attributes, which is diverting the texts away from what they indicate, their meaning, and their implication.
As for the word taʾwil in the Quran, its meaning is the reality to which the speech returns, and these are the realities that Allah informed about. So the taʾwil of what Allah informed about
regarding the Last Day is what actually occurs on the Last Day. And the taʾwil of what Allah informed about Himself is His own essence, exalted and holy, described with His lofty attributes.
This taʾwil is the one that none knows except Allah. For this reason the Salaf said, al istiwa is known and the how is unknown. They affirmed knowledge of al istiwa, which is taʾwil in the sense of tafsir, meaning knowing what is intended by the wording, so that it can be pondered, understood, and comprehended. And they said the how is unknown, which is the taʾwil that Allah alone knows, the reality of the attribute which none knows but Him.
As for taʾwil in the sense of diverting a wording from its stronger possible meaning to its weaker possible meaning, such as the taʾwil of those who said that istawa means istaula (took control) and the like, then this according to the Salaf and the imams is false with no truth in it. Rather, it is from the category of altering the words from their places and of ilhad in the names and verses of Allah.
It is not said regarding such taʾwil that only Allah and the firmly grounded in knowledge know it. Rather, it is said regarding it, “Say, do you inform Allah of something He does not know in the heavens or in the earth?” (Yunus 18).
Like the interpretations of the Jahmiyyah and the Qarāmitah Batiniyyah, such as the taʾwil of the five prayers as the knowledge of their secrets, fasting as concealing their secrets, hajj as visiting their shaykhs, the clear imam as Ali ibn Abi Talib, the leaders of disbelief as Talha and al Zubayr, the cursed tree in the Quran as Banu Umayyah, the pearl and coral as al Hasan and al Husayn, “by the fig and the olive, and Mount Sinai, and this secure city” as Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali, the cow as Aishah, Pharaoh as the heart, and the star, moon, and sun as the self, the intellect, and the mind, and similar things.
These interpretations are from the category of distorting the words from their places, and of ilhad in the verses of Allah. They are from the category of lying upon Allah, His Messenger, and His Book. Such falsehoods cannot be called truth such that it would be said Allah has kept their knowledge to Himself. Rather, they are falsehood, like false testimony and the disbelief of disbelievers. Allah knows they are false, and Allah knows their falsehood through the means by which His servants also know, such as the establishing of proofs and other evidences.
The root of why the misguided fall into such distortions is their turning away from understanding the Book of Allah as the companions and the successors understood it, and opposing what it indicates with what contradicts it. This is among the greatest forms of opposing Allah and His Messenger, but in the form of hypocrisy and deception.
This is the condition of the Batiniyyah and those like them, who outwardly display Islam and following the Quran and the message, even claiming loyalty to the awliya of Allah from the family of the Prophet and other righteous ones, while in their inner reality they are among the greatest opposers of the Messenger in what he informed and commanded.
Yet they speak with the words of the Quran and hadith, and add to them fabrications known only to Allah in their multitude, then interpret them with interpretations that fit what they conceal of matters opposing the report of Allah and His Messenger and the command of Allah and His Messenger. They present those interpretations in a way that appeals to their followers according to what they think will be accepted and agreed upon.
Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wal naql (5/380-384)
