the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. Such is the soundness of its chain of transmission that it is as though you hear the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, saying it himself. So beware lest your accusation of polytheism fall upon the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. What fault is ours if Allah has deprived you of your reason, leaving you ignorant of its meaning?

Woe to you! This involves neither doubt nor uncertainty on their part. Had Allah revealed Himself to them the first time in His form whose attributes He had made known to them in this world, they would have acknowledged what they knew and would not have recoiled. Rather, through His power and the subtlety of His lordship, He makes Himself appear to their eyes in a form other than that whose attributes Allah had made known to them in this world. He thereby tests their faith a second time in the Hereafter, just as He tested it in this world, to make them steadfast in acknowledging servitude, in this world and the Hereafter, only to the One they worshipped and knew in this world through the attributes He had told them of in His Book—attributes their hearts had taken deeply to heart and in belief in which they remained until death.

Thus, when something other than the attributes they knew is presented to their eyes, they recoil and reject it, out of faith in the description of His lordship by which He tested their hearts in this world. Then, when He sees that they recognize only that by which Allah tested their hearts, He reveals Himself to them in the form He had made known to them in