the approach closest to fairness and justice—not to challenge Allah’s well-known attributes, accepted by people of discernment, and divert their meanings, under the pretext of figurative usage, to something still more objectionable, contradicting Allah with baseless arguments and the most crooked reasoning.

Likewise, the apparent sense of the Quran and all the wording of the transmitted reports must be understood in their general sense until an interpreter produces proof showing that a specific sense was intended. For Allah Most High says:

“And this is in clear Arabic.” (103) [al-Nahl 103]

Thus, the usage most firmly established among scholars is that which is most general and most widespread among the Arabs. Whoever imposes a specific meaning upon what is general is among those who follow what is ambiguous in it, seeking discord and seeking its interpretation. In this, he seeks to follow a path other than that of the believers.

What Jahm means by saying, ‘Allah Most High is not described as having inner thought,’ is that He is not described as having prior knowledge within Himself. Yet Allah Most High refutes him in this, as does His Messenger when he says: ‘Allah knew His creation beforehand, and their destiny will accord with that knowledge.’”

He then cited, with its chain of transmission, a hadith from al-‘Alā’ ibn