that what subsists in itself must be either within the world or outside it. If someone is told, “Something exists neither within the world nor outside it,” or, “Two things exist, neither spatially separate from one another nor co-located,” and understands what this means, his innate disposition rejects it.

As for his statement, “The overwhelming majority, namely the people of monotheism, know that the Creator, majestic and exalted, exists, but do not know that He must either be co-located with the world or spatially separate from it,” we reply: This is not so. Rather, those who make such negations are vastly outnumbered even among the people of monotheism, and therefore among humanity at large, Muslims and others. Most of them have adopted this view by following others, until their innate dispositions have changed. None of them belongs to the early generations of this ummah or its imams. Every one of them is discredited among the Muslims on account of an innovation—even if he holds it on the basis of an interpretation and his error is forgiven—or is guilty of something worse than innovation. The latter is generally the case with the leading proponents of this view: some form of apostasy from Islam, hypocrisy in professing it, or the like. The early generations of this ummah and its imams agreed that these people are among the most misguided and ignorant of all creation. Their disagreement on this matter therefore does not detract from the standing of those early generations and imams.

The second reply is that knowledge is something positive. As for the absence of knowledge