that retains its linguistic meaning. Nor is there any such term that is not ambiguous and equivocal, admitting two different meanings. One meaning entails something from which, according to the people of faith and the clear dictates of reason, the Lord, exalted is He, must be declared free—just as He must be declared free of resembling created beings, of needing another, of being made by another who would assemble or compose Him, and of other such notions. The other meaning, however, denotes something affirmed by the Quran and reason, or something whose negation has not been established, or something that reason confines itself to apprehending, or a subtle meaning requiring lengthy reflection and extensive knowledge.

They then make an unqualified denial of that equivocal term, coupling this with declarations of Allah’s transcendence and greatness. This creates confusion in the listener’s mind, so that he initially assumes that what is being denied is the meaning rejected by the Quran and reason. Then, failing to distinguish between the two, he denies both meanings without proof and falls into fallacious reasoning because the same term bears both meanings.

For this reason, the early generations and the imams censured these Jahmī speculative theologians and stated that whoever agrees with them concerning the terms and meanings they have innovated will inevitably adopt Jahmī doctrines, as al-Khallāl narrated from Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī: