what he rejects—or rejects something analogous—elsewhere. They have no consistent standard to which they can return.

The author—may Allah have mercy on him—said in al-Fatwā al-Ḥamawiyyah: “I wonder, by what intellect do people presume to weigh the Book and the Sunnah? May Allah be pleased with Imām Mālik ibn Anas, who said, ‘Every time someone turns up who is more argumentative than the last, are we to abandon what Gabriel brought to Muhammad ﷺ because of their disputation?’”⦗1⦘

It is self-evident that contradictory statements indicate their own falsity.

Fourth: when they divert the textual proofs from their plain meanings to an interpretation they claim reason requires, the very same objection applies to their preferred meaning as to the meaning they repudiated—while they have also tampered with the Quran and the Sunnah.

• An example: if they say that Allah’s “hand” means power rather than an actual hand, on the grounds that affirming a real hand would entail resemblance to a creature that possesses a hand, we reply: the consequence you fear in affirming a real hand befalls you just the same when you affirm “power,” for creatures also possess power. According to your own premise, attributing power to Allah entails resemblance.

• Another example: if they say that Allah’s love means only His willing to reward the beloved, or the reward itself, and not real love, because affirming real love would entail resemblance, we reply: if you interpret love as will, the very objection you raised against affirming love applies to your affirmation of will, for creatures possess will; thus, according to your premise, attributing will to Allah entails resemblance. And if you interpret it as reward, reward is a created effect that can exist only through a Creator who acts, and any doer must will the act, so affirming will entails—