“The Lord’s being exalted above imperfection and characterized by perfection is something we know not through reason, but through transmitted authority; this is the consensus on which he relied.”

These people are therefore left with no rational means by which they can declare Allah, exalted is He, free of any imperfection. The consensus upon which they rely is useful only with respect to general propositions, not the particulars (1), which are disputed among Muslims, for consensus cannot be invoked as proof in matters under dispute. Furthermore, they rely on certain scriptural texts to establish consensus as authoritative, yet the scriptural texts’ indication of the attributes of perfection is clearer, more extensive, and more conclusive than their indication that consensus constitutes authoritative proof.

Once the weakness of the attribute-negators’ principles concerning that from which they declare the Lord free has been recognized, it becomes clear that these Rāfidis have gone from door to door among the various schools, only to come away with the basest of positions. Their mainstay in rational matters consists of invalid rational arguments, and in transmitted matters, of invalid transmitted evidence. Consequently, they are among the weakest of people in argument and the most straitened in their way. The foremost of their imams were accused of heresy and libertinism—as has more than one of their leading figures.

The point here is that people have discussed this subject using ambiguous terms such as composition, division, partition, subdivision, and the like.

If someone says, “The Lord, exalted is He, is not divisible, partitioned, subdivided, composite, or anything of the sort,” and by these words means what they are commonly understood to mean in the language, then Muslims do not disagree that Allah is exalted above all such things. It is therefore impermissible to say that He is composed of separate parts, whether it be said that He is composite in Himself or that another composed Him; nor may it be said that He is a composite that admits of