that very same analogy. The earliest debaters regarded it as impossible for such an attribute to be affirmed, whereas Hishām regarded it as impossible for it to be denied; and at times they tried to reconcile the scriptural texts with their analogical proofs in a way that only made the impossibility and self-contradiction more obvious.

I do not know of a single champion of kalām or philosophy who departs from the Book and the Sunnah without inevitably falling into contradiction: he will declare impossible what an analogous case of his own has proved, and declare binding what its analogue has ruled out. Their discourse, after all, does not come from Allah— and Allah the Exalted has said,
"Had it been from anyone other than Allah, they would have found within it much discrepancy" (Q 4:82).

The correct path is that taken by the Imams of guidance: to describe Allah only with what He has described Himself, or what His Messenger has described Him with—never venturing beyond the Qur'an and authentic hadith. One must follow the way of the early salaf, the people of knowledge and faith. The meanings that are plainly understood from the Book and the Sunnah are not to be rejected on the basis of specious objections, for that would amount to "distorting the words from their proper places." Nor should they be ignored, for that would resemble those who, when reminded of the signs of their Lord, fall upon them deaf and blind. And one must not abandon reflection upon the Qur'an, lest he become like those who "know of the Book nothing but idle fancies."

This, then, is the first of the two approaches: to deny that these passages belong to the category of mutashābih (ambiguous verses).

The second approach is as follows: If it is said that these verses are among the mutashābih, or that they contain elements of the mutashābih—as has been related from some Imams who classified certain proofs cited by the Jahmiyyah as mutashābih—then we reply: what the Qur'an states is that none knows its ta’wīl (ultimate interpretation) except Allah, whether that applies to the mutashābih specifically or to the whole Book, as has been mentioned earlier. The negation of knowledge of its ta’wīl does not entail a negation of knowledge of its meaning, as we have already explained in