that these texts are the most decisive proof for affirming the divine attributes (1), that Allah is above the universe, and that this fact is known to them with self-evident certainty—just as you yourselves claim regarding the resurrection of bodies and the manifest prescriptions of the Sacred Law. Indeed, awareness of this may well surpass one’s certainty about several of the eschatological matters over which the Muʿtazilites and the philosophers contend with you, such as the Bridge (al-sirāt), the Balance (al-mīzān), the Basin (al-ḥawḍ), intercession (al-shafāʿa), and the interrogation by Munkar and Nakir.

Moreover, knowledge that Allah is exalted above His Throne and the like is grasped through necessary rational awareness and conclusive rational proofs—proofs of a kind that do not exist for the resurrection of bodies. Accordingly, the self-evident knowledge, the textual evidences, and the rational arguments that confirm what you deny—namely, Allah’s elevation above His creation, His separateness from them, and the like—are more complete and more forceful than the self-evident knowledge and the textual and rational evidences for many of the questions in which the Muʿtazilites, and even the philosophers, disagree with you. For this reason, numerous reports from the early generations show them siding with the Muʿtazilites on some of the issues in which you differ: some early authorities, for instance, denied that the occupant of the grave can hear sounds (2), others denied a bodily ascent (3), and so forth—yet no report is found from any of them (4)