or one may simply remain undecided, so that he neither knows the truth of either position nor even weighs one of them as more probable.

Accordingly, a person must say with respect to what he really knows, “I know it”; to what he only deems likely, “I think it so”; and to what he doubts, “I am unsure about it.” Allah, exalted be He, has not required anyone to make a categorical negation of something when he does not know it to be absent. Whoever therefore maintains, “We are duty-bound to assert its non-existence with certainty,” is mistaken.

This is altogether different from any claim that contradicts the attributes that are positively affirmed for Allah, for such claims must indeed be denied. Conclusive proofs establish that Allah is characterized by attributes of absolute perfection that exclude every defect—He is the Ever-Living, the Self-Subsisting, all-knowing of everything, all-powerful over everything; He is the Creator, Lord, and Sovereign of all things, utterly independent of everything besides Him. Consequently, any statement that conflicts with this is known to be false, such as the assertions of those who claim that He has a partner or a child, or that intercessors may intercede with Him without His permission, and the like, all of which oppose the perfection that is incontrovertibly His.

As for matters whose existence would necessarily entail certain concomitants, the absence of those concomitants indicates the absence of the thing itself. Thus, when something’s existence would have demanded that it be conveyed through widespread, recurrent transmission, the lack of such transmission proves that it does not exist—just as if someone were to allege that a structure had been erected between Iraq and al-Shām, or between the Hijaz