The crux of the matter is that the report through which Allah has obligated the Ummah and made Himself known to them by the tongue of His Messenger ﷺ—concerning the affirmation of His names and attributes—cannot possibly be false or invalid in reality. Such a report is one of Allah’s proofs against His servants, and the proofs of Allah are never lies or falsehood; in fact, they are nothing but the very truth. It is inconceivable that the evidences of truth and those of falsehood should ever stand on equal footing, or that a fabrication against Allah, His law, and His religion could be mistaken for the revelation He sent to His Messenger and by which He commands His creation, so that the two would be indistinguishable. The divide between truth and falsehood, honesty and deceit, the revelation of Satan and the revelation of the angel from Allah, is far too evident for one to be confused with the other. Indeed, Allah has placed upon the truth a light as bright as the sun, visible to every enlightened insight, and He has cloaked falsehood in darkness like that of the night.

It is not surprising that night should be confused with day by one who is physically blind, just as truth is confused with falsehood by one blind of heart. Muʿādh ibn Jabal, in his ruling, said, “Take the truth from what he says, for the truth bears a light.” Yet when hearts darken and inner sights are blinded by turning away from what the Messenger ﷺ brought, the darkness only deepens as people content themselves with the opinions of men, so that truth becomes entangled with falsehood. They then deem it possible that the authentic hadiths—narrated by the most upright and truthful of this community—could be lies, while the fabricated, spurious narrations that conform to their desires are taken as truth, and they proceed to cite them as evidence. He said (2/379):