We reply:

Yes, such attacks occurred after the doctrine of the Jahmiyyah appeared among the Muslims, along with the discourse of heretics among the Qarmatian esotericists and those who took the worst of the Jahmiyyah’s teaching and the worst of the Rāfidah’s teaching, combining them into a third doctrine worse than either.

We did not claim that no one had ever disparaged the prophets and messengers, accused them of lying, or opposed them concerning the very things to which they called: monotheism, prophethood, and resurrection. Their opponents challenged them with their own reasoning, but their objections were not sound; rather, the arguments they advanced were rationally unsound.

These later opponents are worse than those earlier opponents. The Qarmatian esotericists are worse than the Arab idolaters, and worse than the Jews and Christians. It is therefore unsurprising that these people and their like should argue using falsehood. There have always been people on earth who argue with falsehood to refute the truth.

What we said, however, was this:

If the apparent, understood meaning of what the messengers reported contradicted unambiguous reason, then, in the ordinary course of events, it would have been impossible for those enemies not to object on that basis, or for their friends not to find it problematic, over so long a time and with the community dispersed. If an enemy objects on the basis of unsound reasoning, how could he fail to object on the basis of unambiguous reason? And if a friend finds something problematic when it presents no difficulty, owing to his own error, how could he fail to find problematic something whose apparent meaning—indeed, its explicit wording—contradicts the truth known through unambiguous reason?

We therefore said:

The absence of these objections, despite every motivation and incentive for raising them—had they been valid—is evidence that they are false. Likewise, the absence of any transmission of something that people would have had every motivation and incentive to transmit—had it existed—is evidence that it is a fabrication. By contrast, the existence of attacks and objections does not prove the validity of what