He uses His Might with wisdom, and His Rule is the Rule of law

Every verse of the Qur'an is Muhkam, absolute truth. The context enables us to understand which ones are to be taken literally and which ones are to be taken allegorically. Each verse in the Book complements another. 11:1, 39:23, 41:53, 47:20, 74:31

The believers in their motivation saw the manifold enemy just twice their own numbers, while the deniers saw the smaller opponents twice the size they actually were. God helps those who help themselves

Believers in the Divine laws see this comfort as the means to a higher Goal --- Service --- Self-actualization --- Paradise

The Arabic word we have translated as "multiple meanings" is mutashabihat. The word comes from shabaha (to became similar), and its singular form is mutashabih, which means "similar," "multiple-meaning," or "allegorical" (see 2:118; 2:70; 4:157; 6:99; 6:141; 2:25). The verse about the mutashabih (allegorical or multi-meaning) verses itself is mutashabih. This is one of the most commonly mistranslated verses, and it has crucial implications for understanding the Quran. See 2:106; 16:44; 17:46; 23:14; 41:44; 56:79 for examples of multiple-meaning statements. Also, See 39:23. The word can be confusing for a novice. Verse 39:23, for instance, uses mutashabihat for the entire Quran, referring to its overall similarity -- in other words, its consistency. In a narrower sense, however, mutashabihat refers to all verses which can be understood in more than one way. The various meanings or implications require some special qualities from the person listening to or reading the Quran: an attentive mind, a positive attitude, contextual perspective, the patience necessary for research, and so forth. It is one of the intriguing features of the Quran that the verse about mutashabih verses of the Quran is itself mutashabih -- that is, it has multiple meanings. The word in question, for instance, can mean "similar", as we have seen; it can mean, "possessing multiple meanings"; it can also mean "allegorical" (where one single, clearly identifiable element represents another single, clearly identifiable element). As you may have noticed, interpretation of the last part of 3:7 depends on how one punctuates the verse. (There is no punctuation in the original Arabic text.) If one stops after the word "God", then one will assume, as centuries of Sunni and Shiite scholars have, that even those who possess deep levels of knowledge will never be able to understand the "mutashabih" verses. However, if the sentence does not stop there, the meaning will change to the opposite: Those who possess knowledge will be able to understand the meaning of allegorical or multiple- meaning verses. For a detailed discussion on this verse, see the Sample Comparisons section in the Introduction.

The word aya in its singular form occurs 84 times in the Quran and, in all of the occurrences, means miracle, evidence, or lesson. However, its plural form ayat is used both for miracle/evidence/lesson AND for the language of revelation that entails or leads to those miracles/evidences/lessons. See 2:106.

The topic of the previous verse is the fighting armies, which were almost all male. "The people" in verse 3:14 refers to adult males who are expected to draft for military service. Verse 3:14 gives a list of weaknesses in the minds of the drafted male population to join the military for defending their community. A short-term preoccupation with those blessings, ironically, could be the cause of long-term destruction and deprivation from all.

The above passage may be regarded as a key to the understanding of the Qur'an. Tabari identifies the ayat muhkamat ("messages that are clear in and by themselves") with what the philologists and jurists describe as nass - namely, ordinances or statements which are self-evident (zahir) by virtue of their wording (cf. Lisan at-'Arab, art. nass). Consequently, Tabari regards as ayat muhkamat only those statements or ordinances of the Qur'an which do not admit of more than one interpretation (which does not, of course, preclude differences of opinion regarding the implications of a particular ayah muhkamah). In my opinion, however, it would be too dogmatic to regard any passage of the Qur'an which does not conform to the above definition as mutashabih ("allegorical"): for there are many statements in the Qur'an which are liable to more than one interpretation but are, nevertheless, not allegorical - just as there are many expressions and passages which, despite their allegorical formulation, reveal to the searching intellect only one possible meaning. For this reason, the ayat mutashabihat may be defined as those passages of the Qur'an which are expressed in a figurative manner, with a meaning that is metaphorically implied but not directly, in so many words, stated. The ayat muhkamat are described as the "essence of the divine writ" (umm al-kitab) because they comprise the fundamental principles underlying its message and, in particular, its ethical and social teachings: and it is only on the basis of these clearly enunciated principles that the allegorical passages can be correctly interpreted. (For a more detailed discussion of symbolism and allegory in the Qur'an. see Appendix 1.)

Lit., "that of it".

The "confusion" referred to here is a consequence of interpreting allegorical passages in an "arbitrary manner" (Zamakhshari).

According to most of the early commentators, this refers to the interpretation of allegorical passages which deal with metaphysical subjects - for instance, God's attributes, the ultimate meaning of time and eternity, the resurrection of the dead, the Day of Judgment, paradise and hell, the nature of the beings or forces described as angels, and so forth - all of which fall within the category of al-ghayb, i.e., that sector of reality which is beyond the reach of human perception and imagination and cannot, therefore, be conveyed to man in other than allegorical terms. This view of the classical commentators, however, does not seem to take into account the many Qur'anic passages which do not deal with metaphysical subjects and yet are, undoubtedly, allegorical in intent and expression. To my mind, one cannot arrive at a correct understanding of the above passage without paying due attention to the nature and function of allegory as such. A true allegory - in contrast with a mere pictorial paraphrase of something that could equally well be stated in direct terms - is always meant to express in a figurative manner something which, because of its complexity, cannot be adequately expressed in direct terms or propositions and, because of this very complexity, can be grasped only intuitively, as a general mental image, and not as a series of detailed "statements": and this seems to be the meaning of the phrase, "none save God knows its final meaning".

It is generally assumed that this is an allusion to the battle of Badr, in the third week of Ramadan, 2H., in which three hundred and odd poorly-equipped Muslims, led by the Prophet, utterly routed a well-armed Meccan force numbering nearly one thousand men, seven hundred camels and one hundred horses; it was the first open battle between the pagan Quraysh and the young Muslim community of Medina. According to some commentators, however (e.g., Manar III, 234), the above Qur'anic passage has a general import and alludes to an occurrence often witnessed in history - namely, the victory of a numerically weak and ill-equipped group of people, filled with a burning belief in the righteousness of their cause, over a materially and numerically superior enemy lacking a similar conviction. The fact that in this Qur'an-verse the believers are spoken of as being faced by an enemy "twice their number" (while at the battle of Badr the pagan Quraysh were more than three times the number of the Muslims) lends great plausibility to this explanation - and particularly so in view of the allusion, in the next verse, to material riches and worldly power.