incumbent upon him to accompany his address with something that would turn their minds away from the meaning he did not intend—especially if that meaning was false and impermissible to believe concerning Allah. For he was obliged to forbid them from holding impermissible beliefs concerning Allah whenever there was reason to fear that they might do so, even if he had not addressed them in terms indicating such beliefs. What, then, if his very words led them to the belief that the deniers declare false?

Thus, if nothing in the Book, the Sunnah, or the statements of any of the early generations and the imams agrees at all with the deniers’ position, and they instead consistently speak only in terms of affirmation, then it is impossible that they intended anything other than affirmation, or that denial was what they believed and relied upon, when they never once expressed or disclosed it. Rather, they openly expressed only what contradicted and opposed it. This is a clear argument from which no one can escape. Yet the Jahmī speculative theologians have one response here, and the Jahmī philosophers another.

As for “the philosophers and the Qarmatians,” they say that the messengers addressed people with something contrary to the truth and outwardly presented the opposite of what they inwardly believed. They sometimes even say that the messengers lied for the welfare of the common people, since their welfare could only be secured by publicly teaching affirmation, even though it was false in reality.

Besides its blatant heresy and manifest unbelief, this position is internally contradictory. For they may be told: If matters were as you claim, and the messengers were like your leaders,