have challenged these self-evident premises,” the reply is:

If you allow that the leading proponents of negation may falsely challenge self-evident premises, then it is all the more possible for them to challenge the premises used by those who affirm the attributes. Elsewhere, the arguments of those who deny the attributes and the premises underlying those arguments have been discussed in detail, making it clear to anyone possessed of reason that their proponents have departed from the straight path. They have resorted to sophistry in rational matters and treated revelation in the manner of the Qarmatians. Their denial is supported by neither reason nor revelation, neither sound judgment nor divine law. Rather, they possess specious arguments that those who examine them mistake for clear proofs:

“Like a mirage on a level plain, which a thirsty man mistakes for water, until, when he reaches it, he finds nothing there, but finds Allah there, who settles his account in full. And Allah is swift in reckoning.”

This is why bewilderment, uncertainty, doubt, and confusion prevail among them. Those specious arguments have become accepted premises in their eyes, which they suppose to be rational truths or demonstrative proofs. Yet they are accepted only because of the equivocation and ambiguity they contain. You will find no premise of theirs without ambiguous expressions whose vagueness and obscurity lead people astray. How, then, could a conclusion established through such premises overturn those self-evident propositions?

The more closely an investigator examines what has been pointed out here, together with the discussions of those who deny the attributes, the greater his insight and understanding become. For it is inconceivable that negation could rest on self-evident premises of which reason is as certain as it is of the premises of those who affirm the attributes—premises that conclusively establish