infinite, the second position would be more unsound, while the first would be closer to the truth. Whatever premise they invoke to invalidate the first position, their own statements contain something more unsound than that premise.

Debate sometimes takes place between truth and falsehood, and sometimes between two false positions, to demonstrate that both are false, that one is false, or that one is more seriously false than the other. This is especially useful when examining the statements of speculative theologians, philosophers, and others like them: one of them advances an unsound position while rejecting an opponent’s position that is closer to the truth than his own. It can then be shown that his opponent’s position has a stronger claim to validity if his own position is valid, and that his own position has a stronger claim to invalidity if his opponent’s position is invalid. In this way, the argument for falsehood is defeated.

This is an important matter, for those who uphold falsehood oppose the texts of the Quran and Sunnah with their own statements. Demonstrating the invalidity of those statements is one of the two pillars of establishing the truth and one of the two objectives sought. Had these people left the texts of the prophets alone, those texts would have provided guidance and sufficed. Instead, they assailed them with the principles of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger. Repelling their assault and exposing their misguidance is therefore among the greatest forms of jihad in the path of Allah.

Al-Ashʿarī and others have reported that certain groups maintain that He is infinite. These fall into two categories: one says, “He is a body,” while the other says, “He is not a body.” If the negationists seek to invalidate these groups’ position, they cannot do so. For when they say, “This entails that He mingles with filth and bodies,” the others reply, “Just as you affirm a being who cannot be pointed to and is neither within nor without, we affirm a being who is within