and if discourse and reasoning of the kind used to investigate bodies and their attributes are admissible in theology, his premise is invalid in its entirety. Among the greatest truths known through reason would then be that the Creator is above the world, and that He cannot be neither within the world nor outside it. Indeed, as explained earlier, nothing that exists can be so. This is clear, and to Allah belong all praise and gratitude.

But to oppose what Allah has instilled in His servants’ innate disposition, what He has revealed in His Books, and what He has sent His messengers with, using arguments that support their case only through numerous compound premises—premises that necessarily rely on propositions no more evident to innate human understanding than those they have rejected, besides containing ambiguous terms and other such defects—is something only an ignorant or unjust person would do, or someone who combines both traits. Indeed, such a person is among the most ignorant and unjust in all creation, for he has spoken about Allah, His names, and His signs on the basis of such corrupt reasoning. He is among the worst of those who give short measure in the fundamentals of religion.

If, concerning those who give short measure in financial dealings, Allah Most High has said:

“Woe to those who give short measure! {1} Those who, when they take a measure from people, take in full, {2} but when they measure or weigh for them, give less than is due. {3} Do they not think that they will be resurrected {4} for a tremendous Day— {5} the Day when mankind will stand before the Lord of the worlds?” {6}
[al-Mutaffifīn 1-6]

And it is reported in a hadith: “Prayer is a measure: whoever gives it in full will be repaid in full; whoever gives short measure—you know what Allah has said about those who give short measure.”

How much more serious, then, is this in the fundamentals of religion—indeed, in the greatest