out of any intent to demean Him or to deny His perfection; rather, he imagined that perfection could be affirmed only in that way. You, however, met his mistake by negating that perfection altogether—and that is the utmost form of disparagement. (1)

Tenth: O Jahmi, in your understanding of Allah you suppose that the outward wording of the Revelation establishes several hands upon one side and numerous eyes in a single face. In doing so you have imitated the Christians, who use the literal sense of verses such as, “Indeed, it is We who give life and cause death” (Qaf 43) to argue for their trinity and for the existence of multiple deities. Concerning people of this sort Allah the Exalted revealed: “As for those in whose hearts is deviation, they pursue what is ambiguous in it, seeking discord and seeking its interpretation” (Āl ʿImrān 7).

A sound report from ʿĀ’ishah states that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “O ʿĀ’ishah, when you see those who follow what is ambiguous therein, they are the ones Allah has named, so beware of them.” (2)

This corrupt mode of comprehension has only come from those whose hearts and tongues are foreign to Arabic; they are the ones who have corrupted the religion and confused the people. The Arabic tongue, by contrast, is flexible in rendering the first term of an iḍāfah singular, dual, or plural according to the state of the word to which it is annexed. When they annex a singular noun to a singular possessor, they keep it singular; when they annex it to an explicit or implicit plural, they pluralize it; and when they annex it to a dual, the most eloquent usage in their speech is to treat it as plural, as in His saying, “So your hearts have inclined” (Al-Taḥrīm 4)—though there were only two hearts—and in His saying, “As for the male thief and the female thief, cut off their hands” (Al-Mā’idah 40). The Arabs likewise say, “Strike their necks,” and “Sever their tongues.” This is their most eloquent usage. At other times they leave the first term singular,