the Throne. This is the reverse of what they ought to have done. Thus the Muʿtazilah began mocking them, with one of them saying, “Whoever concedes that Allah is not in any direction, yet claims that He can be seen, has made his own intelligence a laughingstock”—or words to that effect.

Most of their debates with the philosophers and the Muʿtazilah consequently displayed such weakness that their opponents became emboldened against them. They grew afraid of these opponents and shrank from confronting them, while lording it over their fellow believers. Because of what occurred among the people of faith and the sword, and the people of knowledge and the pen, their enemies were given the upper hand over them. As Allah Most High says:

“Indeed, those of you who turned back on the day the two armies met—it was only Satan who caused them to slip because of some of what they had earned.” [Āl ʿImrān 155]

Indeed, one prominent figure who privately inclined towards philosophy and Muʿtazilite doctrine, without displaying this openly, lectured on the question of