The Meaning of the Muhkam and the Mutashabih in the Noble Qur'an

Question:
Allah, the Most Merciful, the Bestower of Mercy. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and may prayers and peace be upon our leader, the guide of the pure and distinct, our Prophet Muhammad, and upon his family and all his Companions. My dear brothers and sisters, peace be upon you, and the mercy of Allah and His blessings. This is a pleasant and blessed meeting with His Eminence Shaykh Salih ibn Farijan al-Farijan, a member of the Committee of Senior Scholars and a member of the Permanent Committee for Scholarly Research and Ifta, with your questions and inquiries that you have sent us. Welcome to the Shaykh in this meeting. May Allah welcome you and bless you. In the name of Allah, we begin this episode with a question from our brother Hamad al-Sudani, residing in Riyadh. He says: In Surat al-Imran, in the saying of Allah the Exalted , what is the meaning of this verse? And what is the meaning of the mutashabih in the Noble Qur'an? Is it the differing?

Answer:
. May prayers and peace be upon our Prophet Muhammad, and upon his family and all his Companions.
After that, Allah, Glorified and Exalted is He, described His entire Book as mutashabih in His saying, the Exalted: , meaning that it resembles one another in beauty, precision, and comprehensiveness. It is beautiful in context, wording, and inimitability. So it is all mutashabih from this perspective. He described His entire Book as muhkam , meaning that it is a Book, the whole of it a Book, to which no doubt or defect can approach. As He, the Exalted, said: , so it is all muhkam by this consideration.
He described His Book as having some that is mutashabih and some that is muhkam, as in this verse, which is His saying, the Exalted: and , .
I see two positions. The position of the people of deviation is the deviation from the muhkam and the mutashabih, and that is that they take hold of the mutashabih and leave the muhkam seeking fitnah, like the action of the Khawarij and others, who took a portion of the evidence and argued with it, cutting it off from the muhkam verses that clarify and explain it, pointing to it, and from the Prophetic Sunnah that explains the Qur'an. This is the method of the people of deviation in order to say, "We argue from the Qur'an," and they are liars; they did not argue from the Qur'an, but rather they argued from the mutashabih, which does not stand on its own; it must be joined to others. So the mutashabih is that which does not stand on its own in clarifying the intended meaning, but rather it needs others that explain and clarify it, and those are the muhkam verses. As for the second position, which is the position of the firmly grounded in knowledge, the people of faith, they are the muhkam and the mutashabih. They return the mutashabih to the muhkam, and they explain the Qur'an by the Qur'an, by the Prophetic Sunnah, and by what the Companions of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) and the Tabi'un said. So they do not mention the texts and say some of them, , but rather they connect the texts to one another. They return the absolute to the absolute. They explain the general.
To the explicit, and the general to the specific, and the abrogated to the abrogating. This is a rank and station that is not attained except by one who possesses two qualities. The first quality is faith and the desire for the truth. The second quality is the clarification of the interpretation of the Qur'an and standing upon its reality, which is first, firm knowledge, and second, sincere faith. So whoever possesses these two qualities, he will be among the firmly grounded in knowledge who explain the speech of Allah, some of it by some of it, and explain the speech of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), some of it by some of it, and return the Qur'an to the Sunnah and the Sunnah to the Qur'an, because they never differ for the people of knowledge, but rather they differ for one of two groups: either the people of ignorance or the people of misguidance and deviation, may Allah protect us from that.