upon them, whose implications admit of no error.”

[Ibn Taymiyyah’s commentary]

I say:

Al-Khattābī mentioned two ways of knowing Allah and His attributes: one based on revelation and the other on reason. Both are ways sanctioned by revelation and made known through the Quran.

As for the first, it consists in recognizing the Prophet’s prophethood, peace and blessings be upon him, through the miracles Allah manifested at his hands and through other means. On that basis, people then come to know what he informed them of and called them to: Allah’s oneness and the affirmation of His attributes. This is because acknowledging the Maker, glorified be He, is itself innate and self-evident, or is known through the slightest reflection and contemplation available to people generally.

The truthfulness of the Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, is then known through the miracles he displayed that attest to his truthfulness.

Al-Khattābī also pointed out that what the Messenger brought includes an explanation of the rational methods by which the Creator’s existence, oneness, and attributes are known. For the Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, did not teach people what he taught them merely by informing them of it—even after his truthfulness had been established—as many speculative theologians suppose. Rather, he taught them the means by which the Creator’s existence, oneness, and attributes are known, and the means by which his own truthfulness is known. He thus explained what he had brought concerning the fundamentals of