the Most Merciful, until he obstinately denies the truth with falsehood and slander.

[The Consequences of Making Reason the Arbiter in Matters of the Sacred Law]

He is constantly occupied with trying to govern Allah’s dominion by means of his defeated reason and inverted understanding: declaring ugly what he imagines to be ugly, or deeming good what he supposes to be good; attributing injustice and folly to Him without insight; declaring Him just at one time according to whatever occurs to his mind, and declaring Him unjust at another according to the whisperings of his devil; alleging that He is incapable of creating the acts of His servants; or imposing upon Him rights due to His servants—rights which, in his judgment, he considers binding upon Him—because of his ignorance of His immense majesty. Yet no rights are binding upon Him. Rather, He possesses binding rights and obligatory duties over His servants, and it is He who graciously bestows upon them His generosity and beneficence.

Had he referred all matters back to Him, recognized that their ordaining comes from Him, affirmed that the will belongs to Him alone in His dominion and sovereignty, not set up any creator alongside Him, and submitted to Him, he would have been safe from associating partners with Him and from objecting to Him.