whose manner of being you do not know? You know the essence and the attributes only in general terms, to the extent appropriate for you.

Indeed, even regarding the “created things in Paradise,” it is authentically reported that Ibn ‘Abbās said: “Nothing in this world resembles what is in Paradise except in name.” Allah Most High has told us that no soul knows what joys have been kept hidden for them. The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, also told us that Paradise contains what no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no human heart has ever conceived. If this is true of the delights of Paradise, which are among Allah’s creations, then what must be true of the Creator, glorified and exalted is He?

As for this “soul” within human beings, any rational person knows how greatly people have differed about it and that the revealed texts refrain from explaining its exact nature. Should a rational person not take this as a lesson and refrain from speaking about the manner of Allah’s being?

Yet we know with certainty that the soul is in the body, that it leaves it and ascends to heaven, and that it is drawn out of it at the moment of death, as the authentic texts state. We do not go to the extremes of the philosophizers and those who agree with them in stripping it of these attributes. They deny that it ascends or descends, is joined to the body or separates from it. They have become confused about it because they regard it as different in kind from the body and its attributes. But its lack of resemblance to the body does not preclude its possessing these attributes in a manner appropriate to it—unless they explain their words in a way consistent with the revealed texts, in which case their error would be one of wording. But how could they do so?

Nor do we say that it is merely one of the body’s constituent parts, such as blood or vapour, for example, or an attribute of