and merciful.
Indeed, they even say:
“If we say that He exists, we have likened Him to all other existing things (1 because both share in being designated as existent. 1)” (1)
These people were told (2):
“Then say that He is neither existent nor living.”
They—or rather, those among them who held this view—replied:
“If we say that, we have likened Him to the non-existent.”
Some of them said:
“He is neither existent nor non-existent, neither living nor dead.” (3)
They were told: “You have thus likened Him to the impossible; indeed, you have made Him Himself impossible. Just as it is impossible for two contradictories to coexist, it is also impossible for both contradictories to be absent. Whoever says, ‘He is both existent and non-existent,’ has combined two contradictories; [and whoever says, ‘He is neither existent nor non-existent,’ has (4) negated both contradictories] (5). Both are impossible. How, then, could the Necessarily Existent be impossible of existence?!”
As for those who said:
“We affirm neither this nor that,”
they were told:
“Your lack of knowledge and your refusal to affirm either does not invalidate realities as they are in themselves. Rather, this is a form of sophistry.” (6)
(1) The passage between markers (1–1) is omitted in (ع).
(2) (ع) reads: “to them.”
(3) The words “neither living nor dead” are omitted in (ع).
(4) The words “has thereby” occur only in (ع).
(5) The passage within square brackets is omitted in (N) and (M).
(6) Al-Fārābī states in *Ihsā al-Ulūm* (Enumeration of the Sciences), ed. Uthmān Amīn (al-Khānjī ed., 1350/1931), p. 24: “This term—meaning sophistry—denotes the craft by which a person can employ fallacious argument, disguise and obscure matters through speech, and create false impressions. . . . In Greek, it is composed of ‘sophia,’ meaning wisdom, and ‘astas,’ meaning specious; it therefore means ‘specious wisdom.’” See also pp. 24 and 26 and the editor’s comments. See also al-Jurjānī, *al-Tarīfāt* (Definitions), entry “al-safsata” (sophistry); al-Qādī Abd al-Nabī ibn Abd al-Rasūl al-Ahmad Nukrī, *Dustūr al-Ulamā* (Scholars’ Compendium), Hyderabad ed., entry “al-safsata”; al-Khwārizmī, *Mafātīh al-Ulūm* (Keys to the Sciences), al-Munīriyya ed., 1342, p. [0–9] 1; and Ibn Sīnā, *Kitāb al-Safsata* (Book of Sophistics), vol. [0–9] of *Mantiq al-Shifā* (Logic of *The Healing*), especially p. [0–9]. See also the foreword by Ibrāhīm Madkūr and the introduction by Ahmad Fuād al-Ahwānī.