The twelfth point is that, in rejecting both contradictory alternatives and refusing to affirm real elevation and real separateness, these Jahmīs are like their other brethren among the heretical philosophers, the Qarmatians, and the like, who reject both contradictory alternatives and deny His most beautiful names.

Thus, to say, “He is neither inside the world nor outside it,” or “Neither above the world nor within it,” or “Neither separate from the world nor co-located with it,” is like saying, “He is neither self-subsisting nor subsisting in another, and neither coeval with the world nor prior to it.” This is like their saying, “He is neither living nor dead, neither knowing nor ignorant, neither powerful nor powerless, neither speaking nor mute, neither hearing nor deaf, and neither seeing nor blind.”

Their refusal to affirm His real elevation and separateness is like those others’ refusal to affirm His real precedence and firstness, or that He is knowing, powerful, or living. The objections they raise against affirming His elevation and separateness are exactly the same as those their brethren raise against affirming His knowledge, power, and life, or against affirming that He is knowing, powerful, and living.

If al-Mu’assis and others recognize that the heretics’ position rejects both contradictory alternatives, then his position and that of those who agree with him likewise reject both contradictory alternatives. Although they affirm the wording of the revealed texts—such as His names al-‘Alī (the Most High), al-Zāhir (the One Above All), al-Kabīr (the Most Great), al-Muta‘ālī (the Supremely Exalted), and the like—they have denied the realities these signify. Likewise, their Jahmī brethren, having denied that He possesses knowledge, power, and life, are, in