= And this includes speaking about Him—exalted is He—without knowledge concerning His names, attributes, actions, or regarding His religion and law. See: Ibn al-Qayyim, I‘lam al-Muwaqqi‘in, vol. 1, p. 38. He also said, may Allah have mercy on him: “To speak about Allah without knowledge is the most severely forbidden of all these prohibitions and the gravest in sin. For that reason it is placed fourth among the acts that all revealed laws and religions unanimously forbid under every circumstance; unlike carrion, blood, or pork, which may become permissible in certain cases. Prohibitions are of two kinds: some are intrinsically forbidden and never permissible, while others are incidentally forbidden and may be allowed at certain times. Concerning what is intrinsically forbidden, Allah the Exalted says: ‘Say: My Lord has only forbidden indecencies, whether open or hidden.’ He then moved to something graver: ‘and sin and wrongful oppression without right’; then to what is even graver: ‘and that you associate with Allah that for which He has sent down no authority’; and finally to what is gravest of all: ‘and that you say about Allah that which you do not know.’ This is therefore the greatest of the prohibitions in Allah’s sight and the most serious in sin, for it involves lying about Allah, attributing to Him what does not befit Him, distorting His religion, denying what He has affirmed and affirming what He has denied, validating what He has invalidated and invalidating what He has validated, showing enmity to His allies and allegiance to His enemies, loving what He hates and hating what He loves, and describing Him in His essence, attributes, words, and actions with what is unbefitting. Among all categories of the forbidden, none is greater with Allah nor heavier in sin than this; it is the root of shirk (polytheism) and kufr (disbelief), and upon it every bid‘a (innovative deviation) and misguidance is built. Every misguided innovation in the religion is founded on speaking about Allah without knowledge. For this reason the early generations and the leading scholars vehemently condemned it, calling out against its proponents across the lands and warning people of their trial with the strongest possible warnings—more intensely than they denounced indecencies, oppression, or aggression—because the harm innovations inflict on the religion and their incompatibility with it are far more severe. See: Ibn al-Qayyim, Madarij al-Salikin, vol. 2, p. 372.