We found most of them defiantly disobedient.’”

He said: “Thus Allah knew who would deny Him and who would believe in Him. He said: Jesus, the spirit of Allah, was among those spirits whose pledge and covenant He took in the time of Adam.”

This statement substantiates the first view: that every child is born upon the innate disposition, which consists in knowing Allah and acknowledging Him. It adds that this had already occurred before their birth, when they were brought forth from Adam’s loins. The expression “the innate disposition instilled by Allah” in the hadith has been explained in this way.

As for the proponent’s statement, “This acknowledgment is not faith for which one deserves a reward,” this does not undermine the argument. He has explained that knowledge of Allah is immediate, and that this provides the basis for His commanding them. For unless the person receiving a command knows the one issuing it, he cannot know that the latter has commanded him.

If this knowledge were not established in the innate disposition, then whenever a messenger said to his people, “I call you to Allah,” they would respond as Pharaoh did, “What is the Lord of all worlds?”—denying and rejecting Him, as though their objection were well founded.

Pharaoh did not say this because he inwardly lacked knowledge of the Creator; rather, he outwardly professed the opposite of what he knew within himself. As Allah Most High said:

“They denied them, though their souls were convinced of them, out of injustice and arrogance.”

And as Moses said to him: “You certainly know