a dispute. This being so, it becomes clear that, despite the answer he gave on the question of vision—namely, his statement, “The crux of this objection is that whenever this faculty is sound and the object of sight is present, vision must occur,” followed by his statement, “We have already shown that this is not necessary”—he had conceded in that earlier discussion that vision necessarily occurs when the conditions are present. He had merely not conceded that vision must be absent when those conditions are absent. Since this was the only answer he gave to their argument, and it is not a valid answer, their argument remains intact. Accordingly, his denial of what the Mu‘tazilah and the Karrāmiyyah agreed upon is unsound.

The seventh point: He presented the second argument advanced by those who deny that Allah can be seen, namely, the argument from facing the observer. He said:

“The argument is that none of us sees anything unless it faces either the observer or the observer’s instrument of vision. It is impossible for Allah, Exalted is He, to be so; therefore, it is impossible for Him to be visible to us. We included the qualification ‘or the observer’s instrument of vision’ to account for a person seeing his own face in a mirror. The first premise is a matter of self-evident knowledge acquired through experience, while the second premise is agreed upon.”