what prevents Him from doing so is that this is the most perfect and beneficial of all possible arrangements. His knowledge that nothing is more perfect than this prevents Him, in His wisdom, from willing anything less perfect. Thus, they make the impediment something pertaining to His own holy Being, rather than something imposed upon Him by another. How different is the position of those who hold that nothing outside Him can hinder Him or repel His decree from that of those who portray Him as restrained and obstructed! And how different is the position of those who hold that His knowledge is intrinsic to Him from that of those who portray Him as deriving knowledge from another—and from one of whom He has no need?

Yet most people have rejected the claim:

“Nothing more wondrous than this world is possible.”

Third:

He claimed that, among the class he ranked as the highest of Allah’s people, some possess knowledge on a par with Allah’s knowledge, because both draw from the same source. When the states of the entities fixed in nonexistence are unveiled to such a person, he knows them from the same standpoint from which Allah knows them. The only difference, from the servant’s side, is a prior divine favour bestowed upon him, which is itself among the states of his entity. The possessor of this unveiling recognizes it when Allah makes it known to him. Thus, he made his knowledge and Allah’s knowledge derive from the same source.

Fourth:

He portrayed Allah as coming to know these things after not knowing them. He followed the ambiguous wording of His statement:

“Until We know,”

and claimed that these words are true in their literal meaning, basing this on his corrupt premise that the servant’s existence is identical to the Lord’s existence. Thus, whenever a creature learns something it did not previously know, it is Allah who has learned something He did not previously know.

No disbeliever before him ever professed such disbelief. For the furthest that someone who denies Allah’s decree goes is to say:

“Allah came to know something He did not previously know.”

As for his claim that every new item of knowledge acquired by a creature is in fact newly acquired