as did Hishām ibn al-Hakam, the Rāfidī. For it has been said that discussion of whether to deny or affirm that Allah is a body first arose in the time of Hishām ibn al-Hakam and Abū al-Hudhayl al-ʿAllāf. Abū al-Hudhayl and other early Muʿtazilah denied that He is a body because of the reasoning they followed, whereas Hishām opposed them and affirmed that He is a body on the basis of the reasoning they had adopted. The former considered its affirmation impossible, while he considered its denial impossible. At other times, they reconcile the revealed texts with their reasoning in a manner whose impossibility and contradiction are apparent.

I know of no champion of speculative theology or philosophy who departs from the Book and the Sunnah without inevitably contradicting himself: he declares impossible the like of what he has deemed necessary, and deems necessary the like of what he has declared impossible. This is because their discourse comes from other than Allah. Allah Most High has said:

“Had it been from anyone other than Allah, they would have found in it much inconsistency.”

The correct position is that of the imams of guidance: to describe Allah as He has described Himself, or as His Messenger has described Him, without going beyond the Quran and hadith, and to follow in this the path of the righteous predecessors, the people of knowledge and faith. The meanings understood from the Book and the Sunnah must not be rejected on the strength of specious objections, for that would amount to distorting words from their proper places. Nor should one turn away from those meanings and thus become like those who, when reminded of their Lord’s signs, respond to them with deafness and blindness. Nor should one abandon reflection upon the Quran and thus become like those who know nothing of the Scripture except wishful notions.

This, then, is the first of the two arguments: denying that these passages belong to those whose meaning is ambiguous.