the army commander. They thus replied to him.

He then sent me the contents of that record bearing their handwriting, and wrote me a note saying:

“They have written this. What do you say about these fatwas?”

I replied: “These people should be consulted about questions of jurisprudence, concerning which a layperson is said to follow a scholar. As for knowledge of the fundamentals of religion and issuing fatwas concerning them, that is not their province. They themselves say, ‘We have no expertise in that.’”

I say: Their statement that “Allah is seen without directly beholding Him or facing Him” is a position unique to them among all the groups of the Muslim community. The majority of rational people agree that its falsity is self-evident. The mass-transmitted reports from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, refute them, such as his statement in the authentic hadiths:

“You will see your Lord just as you see the sun and the moon; you will experience no difficulty in seeing Him.”

And his words when the people asked him, “Will we see our Lord on the Day of Resurrection?” He said:

“Do you see the sun in a clear sky, with no clouds obscuring it?”

They replied, “Yes.”

“And do you see the moon in a clear sky, with no clouds obscuring it?”

They replied, “Yes.”

He said, “You will indeed see your Lord just as you see the sun and the moon.”

Thus he compared one act of seeing to another, not one object of sight to another; for the kāf—the particle of