stands by virtue of standing, then standing has all the more reason to stand; and if a speaker speaks by virtue of speech, then speech has all the more reason to be a speaker; and if a killer is a killer who walks; and if a creator creates by virtue of creating, then creating has all the more reason to be a creator; and if a provider provides by virtue of provision, then provision has all the more reason to be a provider; and if the giver of life and bringer of death gives life and causes death by virtue of giving life and causing death, then giving life and causing death have all the more reason to be a giver of life and bringer of death.”

In short, analogous consequences follow for most of Allah’s most beautiful names, the names of His Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—and the derived names of all other existing things. The verbal noun from which the name is derived would have a greater claim to that name than the agent. What the verbal noun denotes—the action—would have a greater claim to the active participles and the adjectives resembling them than the very agent described by them.

Merely conceiving this argument is enough to recognize its unsoundness. Its proponent fell into confusion only because his statement, “If the knower knows by virtue of knowledge, then that by which the knower knows has all the more reason to be a knower,” confuses the instrumental use of the preposition “by” with its use to indicate accompaniment. He therefore supposed that saying, “This person knows by virtue of knowledge,” means that knowledge itself imparted knowledge to him and gave him knowledge, as though it were his teacher. It is as though he were saying, “If the learner knows, then his teacher has all the more reason to know.” But that is not the case. Rather, saying, “This person knows by virtue of knowledge,” means that he is characterized by knowledge: he neither exists apart from knowledge nor is devoid of it, but possesses it as an attribute. Knowledge itself does not give him knowledge; rather, knowledge itself is