harm. Through Allah’s Book they bring the dead to life, and through Allah’s light they give sight to the blind. How many victims slain by Iblīs have they revived, and how many lost wanderers have they guided! How excellent is their effect upon people, and how grievous is people’s treatment of them!

They defend Allah’s Book against the distortions of extremists, the fabrications of those who promote falsehood, and the interpretations of the ignorant, who have raised the banners of innovation and unleashed the reins of discord. They oppose the Book, disagree over the Book, and unite in departing from the Book. They speak without knowledge about Allah, His nature, and His Book. They speak in ambiguous terms and deceive the ignorant through the confusion they create for them. We therefore seek refuge in Allah from the trials stirred up by those who lead others astray.”

One of the chief sources of division among them concerns this question—the question of Allah Most High’s acts, His speech, and similar matters that subsist in Him and are connected with His will and power. For when certain speculative theologians—the Jahmiyyah, the Mu‘tazilah, and others like them—denied this principle, they supposed that the temporal origination of the world and the existence of the Maker could only be established by proving the temporal origination of bodies. They further supposed that this could only be established by proving the temporal origination of the attributes and successive acts that subsist in a body. This compelled them to deny Allah’s attributes and acts that subsist in Him and are connected with His will and power, or to deny some of them. They supposed that Islam could only stand upon this denial, and that the eternalists among