reports—which would take too long to encompass in this book—indicating that he, Peace and blessings of God be upon him, did not possess knowledge of the times of any of it in measures of years and days, and that God, Exalted is His praise, had only informed him of its coming through its signs, and timed it by its indicators.

And that among it is what its interpretation is known by everyone possessing knowledge of the tongue in which the Qur'an was revealed. That is: establishing its grammar, and knowing the named entities by their inherent, non-shared names, and the described entities by their specific attributes to the exclusion of others, for none of them is ignorant of that. That is like a listener among them, if he heard a reciter reciting: {And when it is said to them, "Do not cause corruption on the earth," they say, "We are but reformers." Unquestionably, it is they who are the corrupters, but they perceive it not} [Sūrat al-Baqara: 11-12], he would not be ignorant that the meaning of corruption is what ought to be abandoned of that which is harmful, and that reform is what ought to be done of that whose performance is beneficial, even if he were ignorant of the specific meanings that God made corruption, and the specific meanings that God made reform. Thus, what the possessor of the tongue—in whose tongue the Qur'an was revealed—knows of the interpretation of the Qur'an is what I have described: knowing the specific entities of the named things by their inherent, non-shared names, and the described things by their specific attributes, excluding the obligatory rulings, attributes, and forms whose knowledge God restricted to His Prophet, Peace and blessings of God be upon him, such that its knowledge cannot be grasped except through his clarification, and excluding what God kept exclusively to His own knowledge away from His creation.

And similar to what we have said regarding that, a report was narrated from Ibn ʿAbbās:

71- Muḥammad ibn Bashshār narrated to us, he said: Muʾammal narrated to us, he said: Sufyān narrated to us, from Abū al-Zinād, he said: Ibn ʿAbbās said: Tafsir is of four facets: a facet the Arabs know from their speech, a Tafsir no one is excused for being ignorant of, a Tafsir the scholars know, and a Tafsir no one knows except God, Exalted is His mention.

Abū Jaʿfar said: And this fourth facet which Ibn ʿAbbās mentioned: that no one