Is changing the interpretation of religious texts, such as the verse: "And He knows what is in the wombs," to avoid contemporary doubts, considered a deception and an attempt to establish something regardless of its validity, especially given that the interpretation was limited to male and female in the past and then came to include provision and lifespan after the advancement of science?
The legal evidence is not of one type; some of it is a text that bears only one meaning, some is ambiguous, indicating more than one meaning, and some is apparent, which bears more than one meaning, but one of them is more probable. Most disagreements in interpretation among the Salaf go back to differences of diversity, not contradiction, either by expressing the intended meaning with different phrases, or by mentioning a part of the general meaning as an example, not exclusively. And His (the Almighty’s) saying: ﴿And He knows what is in the wombs﴾ [Quran 31:34] is an example of masculinity and femininity, or health and illness, or belief and disbelief. What removes the confusion is to bear in mind the difference between Allah's inherent knowledge, which encompasses all details, and the limited knowledge of the created being, just as one must differentiate between the evidence and its understanding. The Qur’an is truth, and its understanding may be correct or mistaken.
Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026
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