did they secure victory, nor did they crush its enemy. Rather, the early generations and leading scholars of the Muslim community assailed them with charges of religious innovation, misguidance, disbelief, and ignorance. Their opponents—the eternalists and others—also assailed them by demonstrating that their position contradicted reason, and used this as a pretext for departing still further from revelation and reason, as happened between the heretics and the religious innovators.

Furthermore, to say:

“One part is no better than another; rather, one brings a greater reward,”

is to reject Allah’s explicit statement, for Allah says:

“We bring one better than it or similar to it.”

How, then, can it be said that no part is better than another? If all are identical in themselves, none can be better than another. To interpret “better” as meaning “greater in reward,” while maintaining that they are identical in themselves, is supported by the wording neither literally nor figuratively. It is therefore impermissible to interpret it in this way. It is entirely unknown for someone to say, “This is better than that,” or “This is superior to that,” when the two things and their attributes are equal in every respect. Rather, using such an expression necessarily implies a difference in excellence, even if only in some attributes.

Suppose, however, that an agent exercising choice assigned to one of two identical things something not assigned to the other, despite their being equal in their attributes in every respect. Such a situation is inconceivable. Even if it were conceivable, one would not say that one is better or superior to the other on account of something that is not an attribute of either at all.

Furthermore, an authentic hadith reports that he said concerning al-Fātiha:

“Nothing like it has been revealed in the Torah, the Gospel, or the Quran.”

Thus the Messenger explicitly stated