Rather, this is mistaken for two reasons:

First: the absence of a transmitted report is merely the absence of one particular proof, and the implication of a proof does not hold in reverse. Thus, if He has not informed us of something, it does not follow that it is nonexistent in reality. Allah has names by which He has named Himself and which He has reserved for Himself in His knowledge of the unseen. Just as affirmation requires evidence, so too does negation. But when no report has been transmitted concerning something and it is not known to be established, one must remain silent about it and not speak about Allah without knowledge.

Second: there are things which no transmitted report excludes from Him or declares Him free of, yet transmitted reports establish that He possesses their opposites, thereby establishing their absence from Him. The governing principle is that He is free of everything that contradicts His attributes of perfection. Both revelation and reason establish this. Whatever is not mentioned in a transmitted report, we deny if we know it to be absent; otherwise, we remain silent about it. We therefore neither affirm nor deny anything without knowledge.

Treating the negation of something—whether an attribute or anything else—as equivalent to negating the evidence for it is a method followed by some scholars of rational inquiry and transmitted reports. It is mistaken unless that evidence is a necessary concomitant of the thing in question. If the necessary concomitant is absent, that which necessarily entails it is also absent. Evidence in general, however, must imply what it establishes, whereas the converse is not required. Thus, the existence of evidence entails the existence of what it establishes, but the implication does not hold in reverse.