and Hell. The Lord would thus always have been without speech or action, and would then remain forever without speech or action. Whatever speech and action occurred would have occurred only during a very brief period compared with pre-eternity and eternity to come. The leading authorities in revelation and reason vehemently condemned these people for this doctrine and its implications. People recognized that its opposition to revelation and reason could not be left unrefuted.

Yet although these people introduced innovations contrary to revelation and reason on the basis of their own reasoning and arguments, the philosophers who dispute with them are even further removed from reason and revelation. These philosophers reject the explicit teachings transmitted from the messengers through numerous independent chains, claiming that the messengers merely presented imaginary depictions and figurative representations.

The former, by contrast, may reinterpret the texts or say, “They have a meaning that we do not understand.” They do not say that the messengers intended to describe things contrary to their actual reality through imaginary depictions and figurative representations. Indeed, they believe that much of what they defend among their innovations was taught by the messengers. Their error therefore lies sometimes in rejecting the transmitter as untruthful, and sometimes in misinterpreting what was transmitted.

Those philosophers, however, know the truthfulness of both the transmitter and the one whose words he transmits, yet they say something that amounts to claiming that the latter lied to serve a beneficial purpose. This is why Muslims have called them heretics: they deviate concerning Allah’s signs. This is why they are led, through their interpretation of