syllogistic inference constructed from premises known with certainty, although the word “proof” has a broader linguistic meaning, as when Allah called the two signs of Moses two proofs.

This is further clarified by the fact that, in inquiry concerning Allah, one may not reason by an analogy that treats the original case and the case inferred from it as equal, nor by a syllogism that treats its instances alike. For Allah, glorified and exalted is He, has nothing like Him. He therefore cannot be likened to anything else, nor can He and anything else be subsumed under a universal proposition that treats all its instances alike. Thus, when groups of philosophers and speculative theologians employed such inferences in theological questions, they did not attain certainty through them. Rather, their arguments contradicted one another, and ultimately bewilderment and confusion prevailed among them, because they perceived their arguments to be unsound or to counterbalance one another.

Instead, a fortiori reasoning is employed in these matters, whether analogical or syllogistic, as Allah Most High says:

“To Allah belongs the highest description.”

For example, we know that every perfection established for a contingent being or one that has come into existence, provided it involves no deficiency whatsoever—that is, a perfection of an existent being that does not entail nonexistence—belongs all the more fittingly to the One whose existence is necessary and who has no beginning. Every perfection involving no deficiency whatsoever, whose kind is found in a created being—subject to lordship, caused, and governed—has been received solely from its Creator, Lord, and Governor. He is therefore more deserving of that perfection than the creature.

We also know that every intrinsic deficiency or defect—that is, anything involving the absence of such perfection—must, if it is necessarily denied of any kind of created, originated, or contingent being, be denied all the more of the Lord, blessed and exalted is He. He is more deserving of qualities of existence than any existent being, whereas qualities involving absence or nonexistence are more fittingly ascribed to contingent beings, and so forth.