—the One whom they did not know was, in fact, the Creator of the universe. Thus they remained ignorant of the Lord of all realms. How, then, can anyone abandon the way of Allah’s messengers and prophets—such as Moses, David, and the Messiah—for the path of these unbelieving, idolatrous negators?!

Yet the Christians fashioned a composite religion out of two traditions: one strand from the monotheistic prophets and another from the polytheists. Consequently, their creed contains a portion of what the prophets brought and a portion of what they themselves innovated from the religion of the polytheists, both in their doctrines and in their practices. They coined expressions like “hypostases,” terms that never occur in the speech of the prophets; they replaced sculpted idols with painted icons; they turned prayer offered to the sun, moon, and stars into prayer directed toward them; and they fixed their fast to the spring season so as to fuse the divinely legislated religion with what they deemed a natural requirement—among other such matters.

Third point: They assert that whatever occupies space and can receive accidents is a dense substance, whereas a subtle substance neither accepts accidents nor occupies space, such as the substance of the soul, the intellect, or light.

We reply: The discussion concerning