is best.”
[al-Nahl: 125]

Countering falsehood with falsehood is not arguing in the best manner, nor is rejecting what we know innately and necessarily because we think that a proponent of falsehood uses it to refute the truth.

• And Allah Most High says:

“They dispute with you concerning the truth after it has become clear.”
[al-Anfāl: 6]

• And He says:

“Here you are—you have argued about that of which you have knowledge, but why do you argue about that of which you have no knowledge?”
[Āl ‘Imrān: 66]

Thus, Allah censures those who dispute concerning the truth after it has become clear, and those who argue about matters of which they have no knowledge. Among the clearest truths are those known innately. How, then, can anyone be permitted to dispute them and reject them? If someone finds this unclear, then it is something of which he has no knowledge, and no one may argue about that of which he has no knowledge.

This is a fundamental principle. One of the foremost grounds on which the early generations and the imams censured the practitioners of speculative theology and disputation—even when they debated disbelievers and proponents of innovation—was their use of falsehood in both their arguments and their judgments. Reflect on this and guard against it. Whoever avoids it will find the Sunnah clearly distinguished from innovation, truth from falsehood, and sound arguments from unsound ones. He will escape the misguidance of the philosophers and the bewilderment of the speculative theologians. There is no power nor strength except through Allah, the Most High, the Magnificent.

The sixth argument:

When confronted with the doctrine of the other group, each of the two groups can give their opponents a response that invalidates this objection. Thus, someone who affirms that Allah is above—whether among Muslims, adherents of other faiths, Sabian philosophers, polytheists, or others—may say:

“I know by my innate disposition that anything that exists must either be