but We bring you the truth and the best explanation.”
And Allah Most High said:
“Thus We have appointed for every prophet an enemy from among the wicked. But your Lord is sufficient as a Guide and Helper.”
And Allah Most High said:
“That was Our argument which We gave Abraham against his people. We raise in rank whom We will. Indeed, your Lord is All-Wise, All-Knowing.”
Thus, the polytheists’ argument for associating partners with Allah, attributing offspring to Him, and invoking divine decree to reject His commands and prohibitions is invalid. These matters and related issues have been discussed at length elsewhere.
It is clear that the doctrine of the philosophers—such as Aristotle and his followers, who maintain that the world is eternal, that it emanates from a cause acting by the necessity of its own essence, and that it is generated from intellects and souls, and who worship the heavenly bodies above and fashion images of them below—involves greater disbelief and misguidance than that of the Arab polytheists. The latter acknowledged that Allah created the heavens, the earth and everything between them in six days by His will and power, yet they falsely attributed sons and daughters to Him without knowledge and associated with Him partners for which He had sent down no authority.
Likewise, the antinomians who dispense entirely with commands and prohibitions and invoke divine decree and predestination as their justification are worse than the Jews, Christians and Arab polytheists. Despite their disbelief, these groups acknowledge some form of commands and prohibitions, promises of reward and threats of punishment. Yet they had partners who prescribed for them a religion that Allah had not authorized.
By contrast, the antinomians who discard all religious laws are pleased only with what their own souls desire, and become angry only for the sake of what their own souls desire. They are not pleased for Allah’s sake, nor angry for Allah’s sake; they do not love for Allah’s sake, nor are they angry for Allah’s sake. They do not enjoin what Allah has commanded, nor do they