these attributes, such that one could say that negating one of two contradictory alternatives necessarily entails affirming the other. If Muslims have demonstrated that the Necessary Existent is more deserving of positive attributes and attributes of perfection than all other existents, and that whoever denies His capacity to possess them places Him among the nonexistent and the lifeless, then this answers both groups. This is not the place to elaborate on that, for the point here is that, in this matter, they are of the same kind as the heretical Qarmatians.

The thirteenth point is that, just as these Jahmiyyah negate both contradictory alternatives, they also affirm both. They acknowledge that He exists and that He is living, knowing, and powerful. Yet they then say that He has neither knowledge nor power, which negates His being knowing and powerful. They also say that He is neither inside the world nor outside it, neither separate from it nor co-located with it, neither a body nor a substance; that He cannot be pointed to and cannot be seen; and other such things. This negates His existence, and this explains their statement, “He exists.”

Thus, what their statements really amount to is that He exists and does not exist; is self-subsistent and not self-subsistent; is knowing and not knowing; is powerful and not powerful; and is living and not living. In this respect, their position entails combining two contradictory alternatives: one is faith and the other disbelief. Their statements thus combine what entails both faith and disbelief, since they both acknowledge the Creator and deny Him. Two contradictory alternatives can neither both be true nor both be false. Yet in this respect they affirm both, just as they negate both in the preceding point.