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132chapter threeexample, are scattered throughout different chapters (e.g., Al-Baqara,Al-Nis§", Al-M§"ida) without attempting to introduce either a systematicorder or consistent argument. To identify the ‘explanatory’verses is, therefore, an important exegetical operation so that gapsof information, created by the scattered nature of the book’s line ofargument, can be closed.If these verses are neither ‘ambiguous’ nor ‘definite’, and if theBook knows only these two types of verses, ‘book of prophethood’and ‘book of messengerhood’, to which of the two should one allocate‘explanatory’ verses? As they do not contain any rule, commandment,or moral instruction, they are clearly not in the book ofmessengerhood. By exclusion, they are part of MuÈammad’s (ß)prophethood, even if they are not ambiguous. But since MuÈammad(ß) held only two offices, of prophet and messenger, there cannot bea third category. And yet, even as nonambiguous verses ofMuÈammad’s (ß) prophethood their origin is still different: they wererevealed directly from Allah; the explanatory verses do not originatefrom either lawÈ maÈfåí or im§m mubÊn as do the other propheticalverses.Why is the Book composed in such a multistructured way, containingso many different types of books and categories of verses? Theanswer lies in the history of revelation. Until the revelation of theBook, Allah had sent down revelations to the Jews and Christianswhich only consisted of rules and commandments, that is, revelationscame down as books of messengerhoods and definite verses. As ithappens, human beings transgressed against the commandments,divine instructions were ignored and new rules were added anddeclared as divine:Then woe to those who write the book with their own hands, and thensay: “This is from God.” ( Al-Baqara 2:79)In order to prevent a recurrence of this calamity, Allah’s last revelationwas equipped with the criterion of truth, the qur"§n. It not onlyconfirms ‘what went with it’, the ‘definite verses’ of the umm al-kit§b,it also controls and monitors their application. That is why the twobooks and the three categories of verses are so harmoniously intertwinedin the text, and why they are so precisely, mathematicallyarranged in a manner that has, until now, escaped the penetratingview of so many commentators on the divine text. But just as modernmedicine explores further and further the complexities of the genes,