Another point we must raise on this occasion is that scholars of legal theory hold as a settled rule that, for a manāt (determining cause) to be taken into account in any ruling, its identification must be established by an explicit text from the Book or the Sunnah; conjecture and personal inference are not sufficient.

When we examine what the doctor has said, we find that he has posited a manāt for which there is not the slightest trace of evidence in the Qur’an or the Sunnah. His only support is sheer surmise and fancy. Is this how knowledge is pursued and how legal facts are established by the doctor whose publishers tout some of his works as “research at the pinnacle”?

A third and final matter: the doctor has claimed that the Prophet ﷺ is, in Allah’s sight, absolutely the best of all creation. This is a doctrinal assertion, and—according to his own methodology,1—it can be proven only by a text whose transmission is certain and whose meaning is unequivocal,2 that is, by a Qur’anic verse of unambiguous import or by a mass-transmitted hadith that is likewise definitive. Where, then, is the text that establishes the Prophet’s being the best of all creation in an absolute sense?

It is well known that the scholars have differed on this issue, and that Imam Abū Ḥanīfah—may Allah have mercy on him—suspended judgment. Whoever wishes to see the details should consult my annotated Islamic Office edition of Sharḥ ʿAqīdah al-Imām Abī Jaʿfar al-Ṭaḥāwī al-Ḥanafī, pp. 337–348.