concerning them.

For everyone needs these two principles, and those devoted to reflection, learning and spiritual aspiration, as well as worshippers, inevitably encounter thoughts and statements concerning them that require a clear distinction between guidance and error. This is especially so given the many who have ventured into these matters, sometimes speaking truth but often speaking falsehood, and the doubts that beset hearts concerning them and lead them into various forms of misguidance.

Discussion of Allah’s oneness and His attributes belongs to the category of declarative speech, which involves negation and affirmation. Discussion of revealed law and divine decree belongs to the category of demands and volition, which concerns willing and loving, as opposed to aversion and hatred, whether these are negated or affirmed.

A person recognizes within himself the distinction between negation and affirmation, between accepting something as true and rejecting it as false, and between love and hatred, encouragement and restraint. Indeed, the distinction between these two categories is familiar to ordinary people and specialists alike, and to the various groups who discuss scholarly matters. Jurists have mentioned it in the Book of Faith, as have those who classify speech among scholars of reasoning, grammar and rhetoric. They explain that speech is of two kinds: declarative and non-declarative. Declarative speech involves negation and affirmation, whereas non-declarative speech takes the form of a command, a prohibition or permission.

Since this is so, the servant must affirm for Allah those attributes of perfection that must be affirmed for Him, and deny of Him whatever must be denied of Him because it is incompatible with this perfection. And with regard to His rulings, the servant must