But if you dismiss the very asking of that question—established for us by the Messenger ﷺ—and refuse to give it a clear, affirmative answer; or if you respond with the Muʿtazilite formula, “Allah is present everywhere,” which in fact amounts to merging Creator with creation and is sheer unbelief; or if you fall back on what is written in al-Jawharah, its commentary, and the other kalām works you studied and absorbed until, as you say, you “have attained an awareness that weaves for you sufficient immunity,” then you will have contradicted the Qur’an, the Sunnah, and the consensus of the ummah, as we have already cited from a number of authorities whom we all trust and whose position we share.
To be brief: whether you agree with us or oppose us on this point of creed, each of the two camps has embraced millions of Muslims for centuries up to the present day. In the camp that upholds the question and answer mentioned in the hadith stand Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, his discerning pupil Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, and all our Hanbali brethren today—the followers of Shaykh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb. Yet both camps, without doubt, fall under the generous assumption you voiced in your previous letter (p. 9): “I can only suppose that we are all believers in Allah, the one God without partner, in whose hand lies all good….”
For my part, I believe that if each side observes the courtesies of Islam, it will say—openly or by implication—to the other, “Indeed, either we or you are upon right guidance, or in manifest error.” The doctor surely knows, as I do, that one of the two—whichever it may be—is astray, not in its very creation but in its thought and creed.
Since both camps today represent millions of Muslims on this and other doctrinal matters, are not these disputants, Doctor, in need of intellectual studies? I do not say, as you did, “in need of further intellectual studies,” for a rational person asks for more only when something already exists to be increased—so how can he ask for more when that very thing is lacking, or virtually nonexistent?