Should Taʾwīl Be Done or Not?

Should taʾwīl be done, then, or not? There is the account of a woman from a Ḥanafī background, who used to ask questions about Ḥanafī fiqh. She happened to get married to a man of a Salafī background, and they were constantly having problems. When her husband was finally spoken to, he asked: “You people do taʾwīl?” The answer he received was that taʾwīl had never been done: it is not something done every day, as if to say, let's go and do taʾwīl of these verses. It is not something that is exercised. So he said: “No, no, no, the Ashʿarīs do this.”

The reply to that was that the Ashʿarīs' belief is that it is a permissible thing, just as Ibn ʿAbbās (may Allah be pleased with him) actually did regarding yawma yukshafu ʿan sāq, during the time of the Ṣaḥābah. That is related from Ibn ʿAbbās (may Allah be pleased with him).

So taʾwīl is not ḥarām. It is something which the Salaf did not do, because it led to problems, and there was no need for them to do it. But the Khalaf, the later scholars, found that there were problems in their time: people trying to take others away, and trying to make them envisage Allah in human form. So at least this was a suitable meaning on which some people could be made to rest, so that at least there is something in the mind.

This is one of those issues like marriage: as long as a youth is growing up and does not think about marriage, it is fine. But once they start thinking of marriage, then it is very difficult to subdue that; then they definitely need to get married. Once a place has been given to that in the mind (because it is a natural instinct), a person wants to get married afterwards. This is one of those things: once somebody causes this confusion in a person's mind, it is easier then to settle on a suitable meaning. It is a greater challenge to say: let's just forget about it completely. That is why the scholars decided to give that to the masses. So it is not something done every day. It is just something that was required, and that was done.