of the divine transcendence and Allah’s being high above His Throne, of His having spoken(1) and His continual speech, of His being described with attributes, of His possessing actions that subsist in Him(2) by which He truly acts, of His being visible to physical sight, and the like. When the verses and reports on these attributes are compared with the passages about the resurrection of these bodies, the ruin, annihilation, and replacement of this universe with another, one finds that the texts on the attributes outnumber them many times over. The verses and narrations affirming the Lord’s elevation above His creation, His supremacy, and His ascending over His Throne are said to approach a thousand in number, and all the messengers, from the first to the last, unanimously agreed upon them. What, then, has made it lawful for you to impose figurative interpretation upon these texts while forbidding us to interpret(3) the passages about the bodily resurrection and the destruction of the world?

If you say, “The messengers unanimously brought the doctrine of the resurrection, so it cannot be re-interpreted,” we reply: they also unanimously affirmed that Allah is above His Throne, that He speaks and addresses, that He truly acts, and that He is described by attributes. Therefore, if their consensus in the one case bars interpretation, it must likewise bar it in the other.

If you say, “Reason required the reinterpretation of the texts on the attributes but did not require(4) the reinterpretation of the texts on the Hereafter,” we answer: Bring forth the rational proofs by which you re-interpreted the attributes, and we shall present the rational proofs by which we have re-interpreted the Hereafter and the resurrection of bodies; then we shall weigh them against one another so that it may become clear(5) which of them is stronger.