This, however, does not correspond to the idiom of the messengers or the diction of the Qur’an. According to the philosophers—as Abū Ḥāmid reports—the created realm is the realm of bodies, while the intellects and souls constitute what he calls the realm of command. At times he labels the realm of the intellects jabarūt, the realm of the souls malakūt, and the realm of bodies mulk. Anyone unacquainted with the prophets’ language and ignorant of the meaning of the Book and the Sunnah may imagine that the Qur’anic and prophetic references to mulk, malakūt, and jabarūt agree with this scheme. They do not.

Clarifying what is created, originated, and pre-eternal

These philosophers mislead Muslims in many ways. One of their tactics is to describe the celestial sphere as muḥdath—that is, an effect—while still asserting it to be eternal. Yet whatever is originated must necessarily be preceded by non-existence; in no language, Arabic or otherwise, is that which is pre-eternal called “originated.” Allah has declared that He is the Creator of all things. Every creature is therefore originated, and every originated thing comes into being after having been nonexistent.

The theologians of the Jahmiyya and the Muʿtazila debated the philosophers, but their arguments were inadequate. They neither apprehended what the Messenger conveyed nor mastered rational proofs. Thus they neither championed Islam nor defeated its opponents. They shared the philosophers in some of their corrupt propositions while disputing them over certain sound rational conclusions. The deficiency of these theologians in both transmitted and rational sciences consequently became one of the reasons the philosophers’ misguidance gained strength, as has been explained elsewhere.