of the Quran and the other revealed scriptures—none of them is Allah, nor the son of Allah, nor the creator of the universe. Consequently, if you align your position with theirs, you must concede that the Messiah is neither Allah, nor the son of Allah, nor Lord of all worlds.

Nor do we know of anyone among those people who ever said that the lahut (divine nature) united with the nasut (human nature), or that the Eternal united with the contingent, or that the speech of Allah and the created order became one entity. Such union is invalid by the consensus of those scholars and of others besides them.

A faction among them did employ the term hulul (indwelling), while another faction rejected that word, claiming instead, “We merely say that the Eternal manifested Himself in the contingent; He did not indwell it.” Yet what they affirm inevitably entails hulul.

The early Muslims—and the vast majority after them—hold these people to be in error, demonstrating their mistake on both rational and textual grounds. Their claim is not the view of any recognized imam of the Muslims, nor of any well-known school among them, such as the Malikis and the Shafiʿis.