all Muslims: that the Quran is the speech of Allah, and refrain from these assertions.”

These people suspended judgment out of bewilderment and doubt, despite their desire for knowledge, guidance, and religion. They are among those most eager to know the truth concerning this and other matters, but they knew only these three positions: those of the Mu'tazilah, the Kullābiyyah, and the Sālimiyyah. Each group exposes the falsity of the others’ position, and each position contains errors that make it unacceptable. Knowing no position beyond these, they settled for simple ignorance, preferring it to ignorance compounded by false belief.

The causes of this lay in their agreement with these groups on the fundamental principle of their teaching and religion: arguing that bodies and the world came into being by the method of the practitioners of innovated speculative theology—as did those eminent scholars and religious authorities whom I have mentioned—and arguing for their contingency on the grounds that they are composite, as did the other shaykh. The latter uses this method to deny that the Necessary Existent is a body, while the former denies that He is a body by that other method. Yet the most accomplished thinkers, who were better acquainted with these methods and more proficient in reasoning and argumentation through them and through other methods, have recognized their invalidity, as has been explained at length elsewhere.

Allah, glorified be He, has stated that He

“sent His Messenger with guidance and the religion of truth to make it prevail over all other religions.”

He has also stated

“that He grants victory in the life of this world to His messengers and those who believe.”

Allah, glorified be He, recompenses a person in a manner corresponding to his deeds: recompense is of the same kind as the deed. Whoever opposes the messengers is therefore punished in a manner corresponding to his sin. Thus, if he has impugned them