This verse contains so many aspects and degrees that all the levels of saints have found their needs from it in all their spiritual journeyings and in all their degrees, and have found spiritual sustenance and a fresh meaning from it appropriate for their own level. For, since the name of Allah is a comprehensive name, it comprises aspects of divine unity to the number of the most beautiful names: “There is no provider but Him! There is no creator but Him! There is no merciful one but Him!” And so on.

And, for example, among the stories of the Qur’an, the story of Moses (Upon whom be peace) contains thousands of benefits, just like the staff of Moses. There are numerous aims and aspects in the story, such as consoling and comforting the Prophet Muhammad (Upon whom be blessings and peace), threatening the unbelievers, censuring the dissemblers, and rebuking the Jews. For this reason it is repeated in many suras. Although it expresses all the aims in every place it is repeated, only one is the main aim and the others are secondary.

If you say: How can we know all the meanings in the examples you have given, which the Qur’an intends and points to?

We would reply: Since the Qur’an is a pre-eternal address, and sitting above and beyond the centuries, which, layer upon layer, are all different, addresses and instructs all of humankind lined up within them, certainly it will include and intend numerous meanings according to those varying understandings and will make allusions to what it intends. The numerous meanings contained in the Qur’an’s words similar to those mentioned here have been proved in Isharat al-I‘jaz (Signs of Miraculousness) according to the rules of Arabic grammar and syntax, and the sciences of figurative speech, the semantics of syntax, and rhetoric, and their rules. According to the consensus of those qualified to interpret the Shari‘a and the Qur’anic commentators and scholars of theology and jurisprudence, and according to the testimony of their differences, on condition they are considered correct by the sciences of Arabic and the principles of religion, all the aspects and meanings which are found acceptable by the science of figurative speech, and appropriate by the science of the semantics of syntax, and desirable by the science of rhetoric, may be considered among the Qur’an’s meanings. The Qur’an has placed allusions to each of those meanings according to its degree. They are either literal or significative. If significative, there are allusions to them in either the preceding context or the after context or in other verses. Some of them have been expounded in the hundreds of thousands of Qur’anic commentaries of twenty, thirty, forty, sixty, and even eighty volumes, written by exacting scholars, which are clear and decisive proofs of the extraordinary comprehensiveness of the Qur’an’s