- Plain, present-day English. No archaic or pseudo-scriptural register.
- Where a technical term is used, its sense is given beside it: "iltifāt (the turn of address from one person to another)".
- No ornate, homiletic, or emotionally manipulative language. Calm, explanatory, serious.
- The reader is never scolded, and forms of address such as "never forget, O man" are not used.
- Invented quotation is absolutely forbidden. Do not attribute a saying you are unsure of to a commentator, to a ḥadīth, or to a source.
- If you are not certain, either do not write it at all, or write it in language that states the uncertainty openly: "it is commonly said in the tradition that…".
- Verse references (sūra name + number) must be correct. Do not give a reference you are unsure of.
- When giving a ḥadīth, name the source (al-Bukhārī / Muslim / al-Tirmidhī, etc.) only if you are certain.
- Presenting your own inference as transmitted material is the gravest error. Where the reading is your own, make that plain in the language.
- Where the commentators divide, the disagreement is not hidden: it is set out in a table — which view, on which evidence.
- If a preference is made, the reason is written out and it is noted that the preference is not binding.
- No legal ruling is issued; the positions of the schools are reported.
1. The Arabic text, its reading, a translation 2. Word-by-word root analysis — the concrete, original sense of the root, its derivatives, its cognates 3. A point on syntax and grammar — word order, the choice between nominal and verbal sentence, elided elements, differences of pattern (wazn) 4. Any difference of recitation (qirāʾa), where it changes the sense 5. Siyāq — the connection with the preceding and following verse, the place within the sūra 6. The Qurʾān interpreted by the Qurʾān — other verses where the same word or subject occurs 7. The occasion of revelation and the historical background, where there is one 8. A link to science, history, or the social sciences — never forced; where it does not hold, it is not made 9. What it says to the present — concrete, touching life
- No hunting for scientific miracles. Modern knowledge is not forced onto the verse. A connection is drawn only where it genuinely exists, and with the note that it is one way of looking.
- No numerological or letter-value (abjad) claims.
- No taking sides in present-day politics.
- No collective verdict is passed on any ethnic or religious group; what the verse describes are qualities, and whoever bears the quality falls under it.