proponents of negation: that neither speech nor love for another subsists in the Lord Most High. The Muslims therefore killed him, after which his doctrine spread among those who went astray in this respect.

Love entails will. Various groups went astray concerning speech and will, just as they went astray in denying Allah’s exaltedness above His creation, which Pharaoh denied in his dispute with Moses. This has been explained at length in its proper place.

Further evidence of this is that the early generations did not condemn the use of individual terms such as “substance,” “body,” and “accident.” An isolated term does not constitute discourse, and no one uses it alone to make a statement. Rather, they condemned connected discourse conveying meanings. The discourse of those who used these terms contained claims that falsely attributed things to Allah and His Messenger: either affirming what Allah had negated or negating what Allah had affirmed. It also contained invalid notions that were, in reality, false and unfounded.

The purpose here is to indicate the kinds of things the early generations praised and condemned, and to show that they were the most knowledgeable of people about the truth, its proofs, and the falsity of whatever opposed it. Only someone ignorant of the reality of the truth, of the knowledge and faith brought by the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and of what the early generations and the imams attained would imagine them deficient in this regard. His ignorance of the first leaves him unaware of the truth; indeed, he believes its opposite. His ignorance of the second leads him to suppose that what the Messenger brought contains no explanation of the truth supported by its proofs, nor any argument in its defence. His ignorance of the third leads him to suppose that the early generations condemned discourse employing sound proofs leading