What rational evidence entails cannot be derived from mere wording, while what revealed evidence entails must be understood according to the speaker’s customary usage, not newly devised definitions.

No one, therefore, may claim that the words found in the Quran have been assigned certain meanings and then seek to explain Allah’s intent through those meanings. This is the practice of those who deviate from the truth and fabricate lies. They adopted meanings they supposed to be established and made them the meanings of “the One,” “the Necessary Existent,” “the Self-Sufficient,” “the Eternal,” and the denial of any likeness to Him. They then turned to the Quran and Sunnah, where Allah Most High is described as Unique, One, Most High, and in similar terms denying that He has any likeness or equal. They said: “This indicates the meanings to which we have assigned these names.” This is among the gravest fabrications against Allah.

Likewise, the “philosophizers” took such terms as “Creator,” “Agent,” “Maker,” and “Originator” and assigned them a meaning they had invented. They divided origination into two kinds: essential and temporal. By essential origination, they meant that what is subject to the Lord exists alongside the Lord from eternity and forever. Yet the term is not known to bear this meaning in the language of any people. Had they merely adopted this as their own terminology, you would not dispute it with them. But their purpose was to mislead people and to be able to say: “We affirm that the world originated and that Allah is its Creator, the One who brings it about, and its Maker,” and other expressions whose meanings necessarily and self-evidently entail that what is produced comes after its producer. Such expressions do not apply to something that is beginningless as the Lord is beginningless, existing alongside Him from eternity and forever.

The same applies to those who have treated the term “Speaker” and other designations in this way. And if the same were done