and Bishr al-Marīsī, Thumāmah ibn Ashras, and others like them. The knowledge, guidance, and understanding brought by these men would therefore be better and nobler than what was brought by Moses son of ‘Imrān, Muhammad son of ‘Abd Allah—the foremost of Adam’s descendants—and other messengers like them, may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon them. For, according to the Jahmī deniers of the divine attributes, these messengers did not explain the highest knowledge and the noblest understanding; rather, those men explained it, according to the deniers’ claim.

The necessary implication of this claim is that, in the view of the Jahmī deniers, those men would be superior to the prophets and messengers in knowing Allah and in explaining that knowledge. Their leading authorities have explicitly stated this.

Ibn ‘Arabī and others like him say that the prophets and messengers derive their knowledge of Allah from the lamp-niche of the Seal of the Saints, and that this Seal draws knowledge from the same source as the angel who conveys it by revelation to the Messenger.

Ibn Sab‘īn says that he has explained the knowledge to which the Hermeses of the earliest ages alluded, and which prophetic guidance sought to impart.

Thus, according to his claim, the prophets sought to impart that knowledge but did not do so.