so the purpose is achieved regardless of which body it inhabits. This too is false: it contradicts the Quran, the Sunnah, and the consensus of the early generations, as well as the rational understanding of resurrection.

We have already mentioned that all rational people say, “This horse is that same horse, and this tree is the same tree that existed years ago,” even though they know that a plant has no rational soul that separates from it and subsists independently. They say the same about animals and human beings, without it ever occurring to them that what they refer to as “this” and “that” is a disembodied soul. Indeed, such a notion may not even occur to them. This shows that rational people know that this body is that same body despite its transformation. It thus becomes clear that the transformation mentioned does not preclude the body restored in the second creation from being this very body. Hence the resurrected body will testify to what it did in this world.

As Allah Most High says:

“Today We will seal their mouths, and their hands will speak to Us, and their feet will testify to what they used to do.”

And He Most High says:

“Until, when they reach it, their hearing, their sight, and their skins will testify against them to what they used to do.”

“And they will say to their skins, ‘Why have you testified against us?’ They will say, ‘Allah, who makes all things speak, has made us speak.’”

It is well known that if someone said or did something, or saw another person do something or heard him say something, and then, thirty years later, testified against himself concerning what he had said or done—this being an admission on the basis of which he is held accountable—or testified against another concerning what that person had received