that He be equal to it, greater than it, or smaller than it obliges both them and you to acknowledge this if He is separate from the world. How much more so if His separateness is self-evident? Otherwise, this must be met with a sound answer. Yet you have offered no sound answer; rather, you have said that this entails the division of His essence. This has already been answered by explaining the multiple meanings of the term “division,” and that division in its familiar sense is, by agreement, not entailed. As for what you have called division, it has already been explained that it is entailed by every existing thing and involves nothing objectionable.

If that is so, reason accords with what explicit texts and consensus establish: that Allah, glorified and exalted be He, is greater than everything and more knowledgeable than all else. As the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said to Adī ibn Hātim:

“O Adī, what makes you flee? Does it make you flee that it is said, ‘There is no god but Allah’? Do you know of any god other than Allah? O Adī, what holds you back when it is said, ‘Allah is greater’? Do you know of anything greater than Allah?”

Reported by Ahmad and al-Tirmidhī. We have already cited