Allah by any attribute with which He described Himself in His Book, or which the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—reported concerning Him, was an unbeliever and one of those who liken Allah to His creation. He thus led many people astray.

The account thus states that the Sumaniyyah demanded that his God be known through one of his five senses, and maintained that whatever he could not know through any of his five senses, he had no knowledge of. This implies that a person cannot know anything that he does not perceive through one of his five senses. This was a misleading argument on their part, so he thought they were asserting that their doctrine was that a person knows nothing except what he perceives through one of his five senses.

Jahm then answered them by asserting the existence of a being that likewise could not be perceived by the senses. He thereby silenced them, despite his error in the debate and their sophistry as well. Had they acknowledged only what