and His oneness and the truthfulness of His messengers can be known through means other than this method. Revelation thus establishes conclusively that this method is unnecessary, while its contradictions of the texts of the Quran and Sunnah establish its invalidity. Revelation therefore shows both that it is unnecessary and that it is invalid.

As for reason, everything said concerning this method has been discussed at length elsewhere, and it has been shown that leading figures among its adherents sometimes acknowledge its rational invalidity. Explanations of its invalidity can be found in the writings of Abū Hāmid, al-Rāzī, and others. When its invalidity became rationally apparent, the “philosophers” gained the upper hand over those who followed it. The philosophers imagined that, by discrediting it, they had discredited the proofs of revelation, supposing that revelation taught what this method entailed. They were even more ignorant of revelation and reason than those who followed it. Its followers thus neither defended Islam nor defeated its enemies; rather, they gave the philosophers an advantage over themselves and over Islam. All this has been discussed at length elsewhere.

The “point here” is simply to recognize that they have no rational proof for denying the “attributes dependent on His will,” which they call the inherence of temporally occurring events. Their most discerning scholars acknowledge this. As for revelation, it is undoubtedly filled with statements contradicting their denial. Reason likewise establishes the opposite in several ways, some of which we have indicated.

Since its adherents had no proof—“neither rational nor scriptural,” from the Quran and Sunnah—their later scholars devised a stratagem, adopting a “scriptural method” that they thought would serve their purpose. They said: “If these attributes are attributes of imperfection, the Lord must be declared free of them; and if they are attributes of