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138chapter threeexhausted’—even if We were to add another ocean to it. ( Al-Kahf18:109, AH)The Truth ( al-Èaqq)Allah is the truth and His words are the truth. 20 He establishes whatis true through His words. 21 The existence of the universe, which isoutside the human mind, is the sacred abode of God—He is thereality. 22 This all-encompassing existence is expressed in His wordswhich are thus also true. 23 Hence, Allah is the truth, and His wordsare the truth. 24 His words are rooted in the truth, not in humanlanguage. Among the ninety-nine beautiful names of Allah you willnot find the attribute ‘the speaker’. But in order to instruct humankindabout the truth, God transformed the laws of objective realityinto human language. The ninety-nine beautiful names are thereforederived from human concepts. Human beings understand the truthof objective reality according to what their limited minds can grasp.Such understanding is relative and confined to what the dominantepisteme allows us to comprehend. The language of the qur"§n musttherefore allow such piecemeal understanding, inasmuch as it mustguarantee an ever-growing awareness of objective reality becausehuman societies develop and the intellectual horizon of people broadensday by day. The qur"§n does allow such relative and gradualunderstanding because of its revelation in Arabic which has the qualityof ‘ambiguity’ ( al-tash§buh). God has chosen Arabic as the vesselfor His divine references to objective reality because it provides thenecessary dialectics between the absolute objective truth of God andits relative, subjective understanding by human beings. This dialecticguarantees that human societies, in spite of their diversity and multiplicityof interpretations, participate equally in the divine truth andtake from it what they can comprehend. This is the true explanation20‘His word is the truth…’ ( Al-An#§m 6:73).21‘And God by His words does prove and establish His truth…’ (Yånus 10:82).22‘That is because God—He is the reality; and those besides Him whom theyinvoke—they are but vain falsehood…’ ( Al-\ajj 22:62).23‘We created not the heavens and the earth and all between them but for justends [bi’l-Èaqq]…’ ( Al-AÈq§f 46:3).24‘Verily, when He intends a thing, His command is, “be”, and it is!’ (Y§-SÊn36:82); ‘When He has decreed a plan, He but says to it, “be”, and it is!’ ($l #Imr§n3:47); see also Sårat al-Kahf 18:35.