Jaʿfar, from his father, from al-Rabīʿ ibn Anas: {and I know what you reveal and what you were concealing}, what they revealed was when they said: {Will You place upon it one who causes corruption therein}, and what they concealed among themselves was their saying: "Our Lord will never create any creation except that we are more knowledgeable than it and more noble." So they realized that Allah had favored Adam over them in knowledge and nobility.

Abū Jaʿfar said: The most appropriate of these statements for the interpretation (taʾwīl) of the verse is what Ibn ʿAbbās said, which is that the meaning of His statement: {and I know what you reveal} is: and I know—alongside My knowledge of the unseen of the heavens and the earth—what you manifest with your tongues, {and what you were concealing}, and what you were hiding within yourselves, so nothing is hidden from Me; your secrets and your open deeds are equal to Me.

And what they manifested with their tongues was what Allah, majestic be His praise, informed about them that they said, which is their saying: {Will You place upon it one who causes corruption therein and sheds blood, while we declare Your praise and sanctify You?}; and what they were concealing was that which Iblīs harbored of opposition to Allah regarding His command, and arrogance against obeying Him. For there is no disagreement among all the people of interpretation (taʾwīl) that the interpretation of that does not depart from one of the two perspectives I have described: one being what we have said, and the other being what we mentioned from the statement of al-Ḥasan and Qatāda, and whoever said that the meaning of that was the angels concealing among themselves that "Allah will never create a creation except that we are more noble to Him than it." Since there is no statement regarding the interpretation of that except one of the two statements I have described, and one of them lacks evidence (dalāla) for its authenticity from the perspective that must be accepted, the other perspective is proven correct.

For that which was narrated from al-Ḥasan, Qatāda, and whoever held their view regarding the interpretation of that lacks evidence (dalāla) for its authenticity from the Book, nor from a report that constitutes a binding proof. Whereas that which Ibn ʿAbbās said is evidenced to be correct by the report of Allah, majestic be His praise, concerning Iblīs and his disobedience to Him when He called him to prostrate to Adam and he refused and was arrogant, and his manifestation to the rest of the angels of his disobedience and pride, which he had been concealing prior to that.

For if someone should think that the report concerning the angels' concealing what they were concealing, since it