Another of those untenable consequences is the assumption that the very best of this nation—the most virtuous of all generations—remained silent, from beginning to end, about stating the truth on this momentous matter (1), which stands among the foremost foundations of faith. Such silence would have to stem either from ignorance, which contradicts their well-known knowledge, or from deliberate concealment, which contradicts their duty to clarify. Whoever attributes such a thing to the elect of the Ummah has indeed harbored an evil suspicion of them.

It is evident that when false speech is coupled with withholding the exposition of truth, the result is inevitable: ignorance of the truth and the misguidance of people. Hence, once the deniers adopted taʿṭīl (stripping Allah of His attributes), they began using phrases that point—both in explicit wording and outward sense—to negation and denial, while never uttering anything that conveys genuine affirmation, either explicitly or implicitly. Whenever texts reach them whose wording is plain or apparent in affirming the divine attributes, they twist them by every possible distortion and pursue for them strained interpretations.

A further implication is that they are compelled thereby to declare the Salaf ignorant, claiming that those early Muslims were an unlettered folk occupied merely with renunciation, worship, piety, glorification of Allah, and standing in prayer at night, and that deeper realities were not their concern.

Another implication is the notion that withholding these passages from mankind would have been more beneficial and closer to the truth, for, in their assessment, people gained nothing from their revelation except the risk of going astray, deriving from them neither certainty nor knowledge of what is incumbent upon Allah and what is impossible for Him—knowledge that, according to them, can be obtained only from human intellects and opinions.

If it is said, “At least we gained the reward of reciting them and the validity of prayer by their inclusion,” the answer is: that benefit is merely a by-product, subsidiary to their primary purpose, which is guidance, instruction, and directing people to affirm their realities and meanings and to believe in them; for the Quran was not sent down