or any desire to worship Him, supplicate to Him, ask of Him, love Him, or magnify Him. All these things require knowledge, and knowledge is possible only by affirming “those meanings,” which contain the correspondence and agreement through which we have acquired whatever knowledge we possess of what lies beyond our observation.

Whoever understands these noble truths and these great, beneficial principles will gain knowledge, recognition, sound understanding, affirmation of Allah’s oneness, and faith, while doubts, misguidance, and bewilderment will be dispelled from him. This will make him, in this field, among the finest of those whom Allah has favored—not those who have incurred His anger, nor those who have gone astray—and among the foremost people of knowledge and faith. It will become clear to him that what is said concerning some of the “attributes of Allah” applies equally to the rest, and that what is said concerning His attributes is like what is said concerning “His essence.” Whoever affirms one attribute conveyed by the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, while denying another, even though both share the very feature on which he bases his denial, is inconsistent.

Thus, whoever denies descent and rising above, or pleasure and anger, or knowledge and power, or the name “the All-Knowing” or “the All-Powerful,” or the designation “the Existing One,” seeking, as he claims, to avoid a resemblance involving composition and corporeality, faces an analogous objection regarding what he affirms to the objection he levels against others regarding what he himself denies and they affirm.

Every argument used to deny descent, rising above, pleasure, and anger can be matched by his opponent with an analogous argument denying will, hearing, sight, power, and knowledge.

Every argument he uses to deny power, knowledge, hearing, and sight can be matched by his opponent with an analogous argument denying the All-Knowing, the All-Powerful, the All-Hearing, and the All-Seeing.

And every argument he uses to deny these names can be used by his opponent to deny the Existing One and the Necessary Existent.