calls them to what the Messenger—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—called them to, not to anyone who calls them to an innovated assertion. The speaker’s intended meaning in using such terms is indeterminate and can only be known by asking for clarification and detail. These terms are neither recognized in revealed law nor intelligible to reason unless the speaker is asked to explain them.

This kind of debate, and others like it, is appropriate when the interlocutor is calling others to accept his position.

But if the interlocutor uses his arguments to oppose revealed law, or is someone who cannot be referred back to it—such as someone who does not adhere to Islam and calls people to what he claims are rational conclusions, or someone who claims that revelation addresses the general public while clear reason points to an inner meaning contrary to revealed law, and others of this kind—or if a person has been troubled by a doubt arising from their arguments, then addressing such people necessarily requires discussing the meanings they assert, either in their own terms or in terms they agree are equivalent to theirs.

They should then be told: the discussion concerns either the terms, the meanings, or both. If it concerns meanings alone, without being bound to any particular wording—as is the approach of philosophers and others who do not adhere to revealed laws concerning Allah’s names and attributes, but instead call Him a cause, a lover, a beloved, and the like—then it is good, if possible, to express their meanings in scriptural language. But if they can only be addressed in their own language, then exposing their error and repelling their assault on Islam in that language is preferable to refraining merely because of the terminology involved. This is like an army of unbelievers whose harm to the Muslims can only be repelled by wearing their clothes: repelling them while wearing their clothes is better than allowing the unbelievers to roam through the land out of fear of resembling them in dress.