and attributes alike.” He is told:

“You cannot deny all names, for your mind must refer to what you affirm, and your tongue must express it. If you say, ‘real, existent, actual, known, eternal, necessarily existent’—whatever you say, you have named Him. Suppose you do not speak at all: either you affirm in your mind an eternal, necessarily existent being, or you do not. If you do not, existence would be devoid of an eternal, necessarily existent Originator. All existing things would then have come into being and would be contingent. Yet it is known of necessity that whatever comes into being and is contingent can exist only through an eternal, necessarily existent being. Your denial of Him thus entails affirming Him. Moreover, this is outright disbelief and negation, which no rational person would profess.”

If you say:

“I do not entertain this question in my mind, nor do I speak of it.”

You are told:

“Your mind’s refusal to know and your tongue’s refusal to speak do not overturn realities or cause existing things to cease to exist. For whatever is true, existent, and established within yourself remains so, whether you know it or are ignorant of it, remember it or forget it. This amounts only to ignorance of Allah Most High, heedlessness of His remembrance, turning away from Him, and disbelief in Him. It does not mean that He is not, in Himself, real and existent, possessing the most beautiful names and the most exalted attributes.”

There is no doubt that this is the ultimate outcome for the Qarmatian esotericists and the eternalist deniers: they remain in the darkness of ignorance and the error of disbelief, neither knowing Allah nor remembering Him. They have no evidence for denying Him or His names and attributes, for that would be a categorical denial, whereas they make no such categorical assertion and have no evidence for denial. They have turned away from His names and signs and have become ignorant of Him, disbelieving in Him and heedless of His remembrance—their hearts dead to knowing Him, loving Him, and worshipping Him.