and exhaust their minds and intellects in turning his words away from their meaning and implications, and in learning the truth from a source other than him. This is the position of the speculative theologians, the Jahmiyyah, the Muʿtazilah, and those who have joined them in any part of this approach.

These are the ones we intended to refute in this fatwa. People’s aversion to the former group is well known, unlike their attitude toward these, who have made a show of championing the Sunnah in many instances. In reality, however, they have neither supported Islam nor defeated the philosophers. Rather, those heretics confronted them with the same implications concerning the texts on resurrection as their own claims entailed concerning the texts on the divine attributes.

They said to them:
“We know of necessity that the Messengers taught bodily resurrection, and we know that the objections denying its possibility are invalid.”

The people of the Sunnah say to them:
“And we know of necessity that the Messengers came affirming the divine attributes.”

The texts concerning the divine attributes in the revealed scriptures are more numerous and more weighty than the texts concerning resurrection.

They also say to them:
“It is well known that the Arab polytheists and others denied resurrection. They rejected the Messenger’s teaching on it and debated it with him. This was not the case with the divine attributes, for none of the Arabs denied any of them.

“Thus, it is clear that reason’s acceptance of the divine attributes is greater than its acceptance of resurrection, and that denial of resurrection is greater than denial of the attributes. How, then, can it be permissible to hold that what he reported concerning the attributes is not as he reported it, while what he reported concerning resurrection is exactly as he reported it?”