there is any sun in existence other than the rays he has witnessed. Even this analogy falls far short: Allah, glorified and exalted is He, is too majestic, exalted, great, and mighty for His relation to all created things to resemble the sun’s relation to its rays. Rather, as explained earlier, this is reasoning a fortiori: if someone who witnesses and experiences the sun’s rays, then imagines that they are the sun itself and its very reality, is among the most ignorant and misguided of people, then someone who witnesses the existence of created things and believes that the earth and the heavens are the very existence of the Lord of all worlds is even more ignorant and misguided.

These people did not go astray regarding what they knew and witnessed of the existence of created things, but in denying and rejecting what they had not witnessed: the existence of the Lord of the heavens. They then went astray by imagining that the existence of created beings was the existence of the Creator of all things. Thus, they agreed with Pharaoh in that denial, but differed from him in this affirmation.

Such is generally the condition of unbelievers and followers of innovation. Their error lies in rejecting truths they have not known, not in the truths they do know. Yet they combine that rejection with false suppositions arising from their desires, which lead them to accept falsehood as true.

In refuting the Jahmiyyah, the imams mentioned what Muslims necessarily know through their senses, reason, and religion, and also affirmed that He is exalted above being within their bodies and entrails, alongside what they said about His being exalted above impurities