—another, independent form of unbelief, distinct from the triad of hypostases and from the alleged union (1) with the Messiah. The Quran therefore treats every category of their unbelief on this question in full.

The purpose here is simply to point out the resemblance (2) between them and the Jahmiyyah, without entering into a detailed discussion of the Christians themselves; for the extremist Jahmiyyah resemble them (3) to a remarkable degree.

What concerns us at this juncture is the resemblance of those who declare: “Speech is a single meaning subsisting in the very Essence of the Lord.” We say to them: You claim that speech is one indivisible, unvarying meaning, and that this single meaning is, in and of itself, command, prohibition, and report. In so doing you have taken the one and made it three, and have turned what you insist is indivisible into three distinct realities.

This closely parallels the Christians’ doctrine that “the Lord is one God, one essence, yet at the same time three (4) essences.” Thus they made Him one, and they made Him (5) three. You then say that this speech—which is one, namely command, prohibition, and report—sometimes descends as a command, at other times as a report, and at still other times as a prohibition; and that when it descends as a command it is not a report, and when it descends as a report it is not a command. When Allah sends it down as Ayat al-Kursi, which is a declarative verse, it is not the debt verse (Ayat al-Dayn), which is a directive.

This is perhaps one of the strongest resemblances to the Christians’ assertion (6) that the single essence—which is three essences and three hypostases—when it unites becomes solely the Word and the Son, not the Father or the Holy Spirit. Just as they maintain that the one thing both unites and does not unite—uniting insofar as it is the Word, yet not uniting insofar as it is sheer Existence—so do you.