toward the refutation of anthropomorphism(1) and the clarification that the Lord is utterly sanctified above division, compounding, and composition(2). We then say to him: This(3) very argument rebounds upon you regarding the “meaning”(4) you claim subsists in the Essence. For what we know(5) by self-evidence concerning letters is, by that same self-evidence, known(6) concerning their meanings. Thus, when any one of us pronounces “Bismillāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm,” he must necessarily utter—both in wording and in sense—the first word before(7) the second. Accordingly, with respect to these meanings we say exactly what was said about the letters: whoever admits that the meaning(8) of al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm comes after the meaning of Bismillāh yet claims(9) that this later meaning is without beginning(10) has departed from sound reason and denied what is axiomatic(11).

If, on the other hand, he alleges that the Lord articulated the meanings of the letters all at once, with no succession or order, we reply: The meanings conveyed by the letters are distinct realities whose diversity is beyond doubt; for the meaning that resides in the speaker’s mind and is understood from the words, “al-ḥamdu lillāhi rabb al-‘ālamīn”(12)—“All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds”—is not the same meaning