—namely, with this very line of reasoning: that the attributes of species cannot be produced by an agent. We have already refuted that claim from several angles (1), and every one of those refutations applies equally here. Such, then, is the answer to anyone who argues that a single statement cannot at once be a command, a prohibition, an informative declaration, and a request for information (2).

As for evidence that the matter is indeed as we have stated, no reliance (3) can be placed on the consensus reported (4) by Abū Isḥāq al-Isfarāyinī, for we have found no explicit text to that effect; nor can it be claimed (5) that there is any decisive rational proof (6). The question therefore remains without evidence.

He only said that consensus cannot be relied upon here because the proof on which he based the assertion that Allah’s knowledge is one (7) is what he quoted from al-Qāḍī Abū Bakr, who himself rested the point on consensus, saying (8): “There are two—and only two—positions: one affirms that Allah is Knowing with knowledge (9) and Powerful with power, and the other says (10) that Allah is not Knowing (11) with knowledge and not Powerful with power (12). Everyone who adopts the first position affirms that He is Knowing by a single knowledge and Powerful (13) by a single power; so if we were to say that He is Knowing by two kinds of knowledge or more, that would—"