in its clear, unambiguous form. Yet the sign of their falsity is their opposition to the Book and the Sunnah, and everything that contradicts the Book and the Sunnah is certainly false. Some people may recognize its falsity through their own reason, while others do not.

Moreover, when people debate using newly coined, ambiguous, innovated terms that may convey either truth or falsehood, and one disputant affirms them while the other denies them, both are mistaken. Most disagreements among rational people arise from using the same terms for different meanings. The resulting corruption of reason and religion is known only to Allah. If people refer their disputes back to the Book and the Sunnah, sound meanings are established in both, and whoever holds the truth can explain it through the Book and the Sunnah.

If people needed something concerning the foundations of their religion that Allah and His Messenger had not explained, Allah would not have perfected their religion for them or completed His favour upon them. We therefore know that every truth people need concerning the foundations of their religion must have been explained by the Messenger, since the subsidiary matters of religion cannot stand without its foundations. How, then, could the Messenger have left unexplained to people the foundations of religion without which faith cannot be complete?

This reveals the misguidance of anyone who invents a method or belief and claims that faith cannot be complete without it, despite knowing that the Messenger did not mention it.

This was among the arguments the scholars of the Sunnah used against those who called them to adopt the position of the Jahmiyyah, who held that the Quran was created. They said:

“If this were part of the religion to which people must be called, the Messenger would have known it,