rational, agrees with the revealed texts rather than contradicting them. Since it had become commonly understood that the Jahmī position rests on negation, poets began expressing this idea in verse, as Abū Tammām said:

“Jahmī in its attributes—yet they
Have named it the essence of things.”

These people have committed four grave wrongs:

First: rejecting the revealed texts of the prophets, blessings and peace be upon them.

Second: rejecting the rational conclusions of reasonable people that agree with those texts.

Third: making their own ambiguous or false statements, which contradict those texts and conclusions, into the foundations of religion.

Fourth: declaring those who disagree with these invented statements—which contradict authentic revelation and sound reason—to be disbelievers, sinners, or mistaken.

The people of knowledge and faith take the opposite approach. They make the words of Allah and His Messenger the foundation on which they rely and the standard by which people’s disputes are resolved. Whatever agrees with them is true, and whatever contradicts them is false. If a believer intends to follow them but errs after exerting his utmost effort to reach the correct judgment, Allah forgives his error, whether it concerns questions of knowledge conveyed through revelation or questions of knowledge. For not everything known with certainty to some people must necessarily be known with certainty to others.

Nor does everyone know and understand everything that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said. Rather, many people have not heard much of it, and many may be uncertain about what he intended, even though his words are themselves clear and accompanied by what explains his intent. But the people of knowledge know