its proper place. Thus, it is understood only by an intelligent person whose mind has been trained to accept the premises by which they corrupt it, or to conceptualize their contradictory doctrines. If he becomes one of their followers, they lead him from one stage to another, just as the Qarmatians lead those who respond to their call from one stage to another. Likewise, these Jahmiyyah who deny the divine attributes cannot address anyone, intelligent or dull-witted, with the true substance of their doctrine unless he has first accepted premises they have devised. These contain ambiguous expressions through which they confuse truth with falsehood for him. The premises he has accepted from them, with all their obfuscation and ambiguity, then remain their argument against him whenever he disputes with them, until, if they can, they draw him out of reason and religion as a hair is drawn out of dough. Among the stages of their call are al-khalʿ (“casting off”), al-salkh (“flaying”), and other such expressions.

I have examined their books and found that they argue against Muslim groups affected by religious innovation on the basis of the innovations those groups share with them. Thus Ibn Sīnā argued against the Muʿtazilah and other such deniers of the divine attributes on the basis of the innovated doctrines in which they agreed with him. Otherwise, sound natural dispositions reject the doctrines of those who deny the attributes: natural disposition, reason, and transmitted revelation all concur in rejecting them. Dissent arises only through subtle specious arguments which are, in reality, among the most utterly false of falsehoods.

One of our companions told me that one of the learned men, who had a degree of