that are pure. And if an angel does not enter a house containing a dog, then the meanings that angels love do not enter a heart containing the blameworthy traits of dogs, nor do angels descend upon such people. A fuller discussion of this belongs elsewhere.
The point is that when those innovators among the speculative theologians opened “the door to flawed analogy in rational matters and corrupt interpretation in matters of revelation,” this became a gateway for unbelieving heretics to something still worse: sophistry in rational matters and Qarmatian interpretation in matters of revelation. Whoever took this any further was led to something worse still. Eventually, the Qarmatians went so far as to abolish all the known religious laws, as their leader in Syria told them:
“We have relieved you of acts of worship: there is no fasting, no prayer, no pilgrimage, and no zakat.”
This is why some of the early generations said:
“Religious innovations pave the way to disbelief, and sins pave the way to hypocrisy.”
When the leading proponents of innovated speculative theology believed that Allah’s being the Creator of everything meant what was stated earlier—namely, that He had never done anything or spoken anything until He brought the world into existence—they were compelled to say that the Quran, or any other speech of Allah, is created, separate and apart from Him. For if He had eternal speech, or uncreated speech, then, according to the principle they had established, the world would necessarily be eternal. Rational people recognize that speech occurs only through the speaker’s power and will. As for speech subsisting in the speaker’s very being without power or will, this had never been conceived of by