none of the early generations or the imams ever instructed those who heard the Quran and hadith to turn their hearts and minds away from reflecting on these texts, understanding them, and conceiving their meaning. Nor did they instruct them to believe that this meaning was not intended, and that what was intended was instead one of the meanings proposed by those who interpret them figuratively, or some other meaning entirely unknown, whether in general or in detail, and indistinguishable from any other.

Nor can it be said that they considered it sufficient for people to hear His words:

“There is nothing like Him” [al-Shūrā: 11],

and His words: “Do you know of any equal to Him? (65)” [Maryam: 65],

and His words: “And there is none comparable to Him. (4)” [al-Ikhlās: 4].

For the response is that these texts indicate precisely what he reports those who affirm the attributes as explicitly stating: that what is affirmed of Allah differs from what is affirmed of created beings. This difference means the absence of likeness, and that is what the texts indicate. Thus, if what the texts indicate is precisely what he reports those who affirm the attributes as holding, then, if this were unacceptable or impossible to conceive or imagine—even though conception and imagination are prevalent among, or inseparable from, human beings—people at large would surely have been seen rejecting and repudiating it.

The forty-first argument:

As for his statement, “It is well known that the hand and face, in the sense they have described, cannot be conceived or imagined,” he either