—or anyone else—“Allah has united with Muhammad, for He said, ‘Indeed, those who pledge allegiance to you are actually pledging allegiance to Allah’ ⦗48:10⦘,” such a claim is of the very same kind as the Christians’ assertion. The verse itself gives no support to that idea; rather, pledging allegiance to the Messenger counts as pledging allegiance to Allah because the Messenger enjoins only what Allah enjoins and forbids only what Allah forbids.

Nowhere in the speech of the prophets do we find that Allah—or any of His attributes—undergoes the sort of birth they label an “intellectual” or “spiritual” birth. Neither do their scriptures state that any attribute of Allah is called the Son of God, or that the divine nature (lahūt) is the Son of God—let alone that they would declare Allah to have been born from a woman, emerging from her womb as a physically born being.

Hence, when the Christians disagreed over this matter, those who affirmed it had no proof from the prophetic texts against those who denied it. All they could do was cling to ambiguous phrases and alter clear, decisive wording that plainly shows the one who was born was merely a human being.

Accordingly, if they say about those ambiguous expressions, “We do not know what the Messenger meant by them,” this is something for which they might be excused, for the ambiguous parts of revelation are understood only by Allah and by those firmly grounded in knowledge. But if they say, “We are not among those firmly grounded in knowledge who know its interpretation,”