view. Thus, whatever He does is done for a wisdom that calls for it, just as whatever He refrains from doing is avoided for a wisdom that requires Him to be exalted above it. Accordingly, we know that there is wisdom in everything He does. This general knowledge suffices us, even if we do not know the details. Our lack of knowledge of the details of His wisdom is comparable to our lack of knowledge of the nature of His essence. Just as we know that He possesses the attributes of perfection, although the true nature of His essence is unknown to us, we do not reject what we know because of what we do not know.

Likewise, we know that He is “Wise” in what He does and commands. Our lack of knowledge of the wisdom behind certain particular matters does not undermine our knowledge of His wisdom in principle. We therefore do not reject what we know of His wisdom because we do not know its details.

We know that someone who recognizes the expertise of specialists in arithmetic, medicine, and grammar, but does not possess the qualifications that make them specialists in these fields, cannot impugn their statements merely because he does not understand their reasoning. His servants are further from understanding Allah and His wisdom in His creation than the laypeople among them are from understanding arithmetic, medicine, and grammar. Their objections to His wisdom therefore display greater ignorance and a greater presumption in speaking without knowledge than those of a complete layperson who criticizes arithmetic, medicine, and grammar without knowing anything about them.

This becomes clear through the principle concerning perfection that we mentioned, namely our statement that perfection