of the divine attributes and the denial of qadar (the divine decree), and you agreed with them that these foundations include negating many of the attributes. You then failed to affirm the decree altogether, to the point that you nullified the wisdom, benefits, and inherent relationships contained in Allah’s commands and prohibitions—indeed, in His creation and legislation as a whole.(1) You went on to claim that the refutation of the Qadariyya can only be achieved by wholly rejecting the intellect’s ability to recognize good and evil, and by maintaining that all actions are identical in themselves: in reality there is no difference between prayer and fornication except for the arbitrary fiat(2) of the Lawgiver in obligating the one and forbidding the other. Thus your doctrine has become a pathway leading to the corruption of religion and the sacred law, a corruption even more grievous than denying the decree. Elsewhere(3) we have demonstrated that Allah, in the Quran, sets forth parables—rational analogies through which He establishes what He relates concerning the fundamentals of the faith, such as monotheism, the truthfulness of the messengers, and the possibility of resurrection—and that these matters are presented in the Quran in the most perfect manner. In fact, whatever the dialecticians among the theologians and philosophers attempt to prove in this field, the Quran provides its distilled essence and something superior in every respect; the difference between the two is immeasurably vast.

It is clear that this is a momentous affair and a grave matter, for you and the Muʿtazilites seek to establish many of the doctrines of faith(4) by methods that are weak or unsound, and these very methods entail denying many other fundamentals of the faith. The upshot of the claim on which you have agreed with them is that one cannot affirm the Messenger in part of what he has conveyed without denying him in another part; therefore it is impossible to believe in the entire Book, and the person ends up an unbeliever