How can a frail human being ever protect himself from one against whom the very heavens are guarded by the stars, whose attempts to overhear are repelled by shooting flames, yet who has been granted a hidden path to men’s hearts? He courses through them as blood courses, whispering then withdrawing, and Allah does not shield the servant from him. Likewise, did not Allah create Adam for life on earth, place him in the Garden, and forbid him the tree, fully knowing that he would be deceived and thus give in, be made to slip and therefore slip, until He drove him out to the abode where He had appointed for him a dwelling and a provision for a fixed term?

When their discourse, built on the principles they had devised, flowed smoothly and its outward charm seemed congenial—pleasing to the ears and luring the hearts of the heedless—they turned to the Book of Allah and found it overturning their analogies and demolishing what they had erected. They therefore hunted for strained interpretations and far-fetched loopholes, casting the Qur’an into riddles and enigmas, though none of those artifices could withstand examination, whether by reason or by language. An example is their claim regarding the words, “He leads astray whom He wills,” that it merely means: He attributes them to error; and regarding, “He guides whom He wills,” that it means: He attributes them to guidance. Yet what gain lies in such attribution that He should repeat it again and again? Had He intended mere attribution, He would have said: “He declares them astray.”