on declaring those who hold this view unbelievers. Rather, this is a claim of consensus on the very point under dispute, and therefore deserves no consideration.”

This is an explicit acknowledgment on his part that the assertion that Allah resembles His creation in some respects is included in what all Muslims affirm. There is no doubt that any two existing things must have something in common, even if one possesses it more perfectly and has a greater claim to it than the other. Otherwise, if they were assumed to have absolutely nothing in common and to share no characteristic whatsoever, they would not be two existing things. This is known through self-evident, innate understanding, which no rational people who grasp it dispute.

We have drawn attention to this point more than once in this work, in the Egyptian Responses, in the Response to the Sarkhadī Question, and elsewhere, when explaining the specious arguments concerning composition and corporeality, and the specious argument concerning resemblance. Agreement and shared characteristics between existing things occur at the four levels of existence: