hears a whispered word just as he hears what is spoken aloud; he sees all that is in the heavens and the earth, and not a single atom of it is hidden from him. He is capable of all things, so that not one object of power passes beyond his power (1), just as nothing eludes his knowledge or his creating (2). He has angels who, by his command, administer the cosmos: they rise and descend, move and transfer from place to place. He will remove this world, lay waste to the present order, bring forth the Hereafter, and raise to life those in the graves—majestic is His glory.

Texts of this sort are as unmistakable in conveying their intent as the word “ten” or “three” is in indicating the numbers they denote, and as the words “sun,” “moon,” “night,” “day,” “land,” “sea,” “horses,” “mules,” “camels,” “cattle,” “sheep” (3), “male,” and “female” are in indicating what they name; there is absolutely no difference whatsoever.

Hence, when the Jahmiyyah subjected the passages on the divine attributes to forced interpretation, the Batinis did the same with these plain matters. They treated them as parables meant for something other than their real and apparent sense and declared the entire Quran and the whole of the revealed law to be open to such interpretation (4). They even produced independent works on this method, just as the Jahmiyyah produced works on interpreting the verses and hadiths concerning the attributes.

If interpretation is allowed to take hold of this category, the entire Sacred Law becomes liable to reinterpretation, for this is the most evident and most frequently occurring section of the Quran, whose proofs are varied to the utmost degree. Accepting the possibility of interpreting anything else is far easier than subjecting this category to it.