another, outside anything and not distinct from anything.”

Chapter: Explaining This

He should be told: “Your assertion rests on analogy and reason, yet you worship nothing. For if He were an entity situated within something, analogy and reason would require Him to be either inside something or outside it. Since He is none of these things, it is impossible for Him to be like anything or outside anything. By my life, you have described something indistinct that has no existence. This is your religion, and negation is the foundation of your doctrine.”

As for the argument he related from Ibn al-Haysam, he did not give its exact wording, but stated that he had formulated it better than Ibn al-Haysam had. In everything we present, however, we reproduce the proponents’ exact words, since rephrasing them may introduce departures from truthfulness and fairness, whether deliberately or inadvertently. Even if a person does not deliberately twist his tongue with lies or conceal some of what another says, he does not feel such affection for the doctrine he seeks to refute as would prompt him to formulate its arguments in the best possible way, arranging them so as to secure its victory. How much more so if he is hostile