Sallām, Muhammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Bukhārī, Muslim ibn Hajjāj al-Naysābūrī, and the two al-Dārimīs: Abū Muhammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Rahmān and ʿUthmān ibn Saʿīd; Abū Hātim al-Rāzī and Abū Zurʿah al-Rāzī; Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī, Abū Bakr al-Athram, Harb al-Kirmānī, and countless others whose number only Allah knows—the imams of Islam, the heirs of the prophets, and the successors of the messengers.

All of these agreed upon the opposite of the position held by those who deny the divine attributes. This is established by reports transmitted through numerous independent channels from them and from other imams of the early generations, without any disagreement among them on this matter.

[The second argument]

The texts concerning this matter are explicit and cannot bear the interpretations proposed. These interpretations are of the same kind as those of the esoteric Qarmatians, and they are false, as has been explained in the appropriate place. Indeed, their invalidity is self-evident. Likewise, the invalidity has been demonstrated of every interpretation of “rose over” that does not entail His being high above the Throne, such as interpreting it as power, rank, or anything else.

[The third argument]

We do not concede that any rational proof contradicts this at all.

Rather, the purported rational arguments set against this transmitted evidence are akin to the specious arguments of the Sophists: notions and imaginings that do not correspond to reality. Everyone who advances them is either following someone else or relying on his own conjecture. For anyone who assesses their premises by sound human nature and examines how they are combined will find, among the arguments opposing the transmitted evidence, no demonstration correctly constructed from premises known with certainty. And most of those whom you find