It is thus clear that remembering Allah is the foundation for warding off whispering, which is the source of all disbelief, ignorance, disobedience, and injustice. Allah Most High says:

“Indeed, you have no authority over My servants.”

He also says:

“Indeed, he has no authority over those who believe and put their trust in their Lord.”

And He says:

“Whoever holds fast to Allah has been guided to a straight path.”

There are other scriptural texts to the same effect.

Among the supplications that Imam Ahmad taught some of his companions was:

“O Guide of the bewildered, guide me to the path of the truthful, and make me one of Your righteous servants.”

For this reason, most of Ahl al-Sunnah, both the scholars of our school and others, held that Allah may be called dalīl (Guide). Ibn ‘Aqīl and many of al-Ash‘arī’s followers, however, did not permit calling Him dalīl, because they understood dalīl to mean that by which something is inferred, whereas Allah is the dāll (the One who guides). Their position reflects the distinction between dāll and dalīl that predominated in their customary usage.

This can be answered in two ways.

First: dalīl is an intensive form of dāll, emphasizing the quality of guiding. Thus, every dalīl is a dāll, but not every dāll is a dalīl. It is not a noun denoting an instrument by which an action is performed, for fa‘īl is not one of the patterns used for instrument nouns, such as mif‘al and mif‘āl.

Statements, actions, and physical bodies from which conclusions are drawn are called adillah (evidence) because they guide those who draw conclusions from them. Likewise, they are described as guiding, directing, recognizing, knowing, speaking, answering, judging, giving legal opinions, recounting, and bearing witness, even though they have neither intention nor will in any of this, nor sensation nor perception. Such usage is well known in Arabic and other languages.

The distinction and restriction they propose therefore have no basis in Arabic usage.