to the words of Sībawayh and Hippocrates, their teachings on grammar and medicine would be corrupted. If this were done to the words of individual scholars such as Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, Ahmad, and Abū Hanīfah, knowledge would thereby be corrupted and obscured for them. What, then, if this is done to the words of the Lord of all worlds? This is the way of the heretics who deviate concerning Allah’s names and signs, and of those who share in some of their practices.

For example, someone may say that “the One” is that which is indivisible. By “indivisible,” he means that nothing in it can be distinguished from anything else; he also says that no attribute inheres in it. They then claim that this is what “the Unique” and “the One” mean in the Quran.

Yet it is well known that every occurrence in the Quran of the terms for “one” and “anyone” contradicts what they have asserted. Examples include His words, Most High:

“If there is only one, she shall have half”;

“One of the two women said, ‘O my father, hire him’”;

“And there is none comparable to Him”;

“If any of the polytheists seeks your protection”;

and “Leave Me to deal with the one whom I created alone.”

These terms and others like them are applied to something that exists in its own right, can be pointed to, and has distinguishable parts. This is what they call a “body” in their terminology.

Likewise, suppose they say that entities possessing attributes are alike, bodies are alike, and substances are alike, and then seek to use His words, Most High—“There is nothing like Him”—to deny the realities to which they have assigned these names in their newly devised terminology. This would be a fabrication against the Quran, for this is not what likeness means in the Arabic language, in the language of the Quran, or in any other language.

Allah Most High says:

“If you turn away, He will replace you with another people, who will not be like you.”