This is why Ibn al-Nafīs, the distinguished physician, used to say:

“There are only two positions: that of the people of hadith and that of the philosophers. As for these speculative theologians, their position is plainly contradictory and inconsistent.”

He meant that the people of hadith affirmed everything the messengers brought, whereas the philosophers treated it all as imaginative representations and illusions.

Numerous proofs from revelation and reason establish the falsity of these heretics’ position. The truth must therefore lie in the position of the early generations—the adherents of hadith, the Sunnah, and the community.

Furthermore, Ibn Sīnā and others like him among the esotericist philosophers and the Qarmatians say:

“He intended those he addressed to understand matters otherwise than they really are, and to believe in things that have no existence in external reality, because these imaginative representations and false beliefs served their interests.”

The Jahmiyyah, the Mu‘tazilah, and others like them say:

“He intended them to believe the truth as it really is,” even though they know that he did not explain it in the Book and the Sunnah; rather, the texts indicate its opposite.

The former thus say:

“He intended them to believe falsehood and commanded them to do so.”

The latter say:

“He intended them to believe something, yet directed them only to its opposite.”

The believer knows self-evidently that both positions are false. Those who deny the divine attributes and reinterpret the texts must adopt one or the other of these positions. And if both are false, then the deniers’ reinterpretation of the texts is false: