as did Abū Umar al-Talamankī al-Andalusī (1), Judge Abū Ya'lā (2), and several others.

As for the leading scholars of the sunnah and a number of the theologians, they explained that this method is also rationally invalid and that it is incompatible with the soundness of Islam, let alone being a condition for knowing it. How could something indispensable to Islam possibly be something that contradicts it?!

They explained that positing an Essence that had never acted or spoken by its own will and power, and then positing that effects—such as composed and ordered speech, concrete entities, and other things—came into being without any newly occurring cause, is known by plain reason to be false. It also contradicts the fact that He—glorified is He—created the heavens and the earth, that the Quran is the speech of Allah, and the other matters reported by the messengers. Indeed, its true implication is that the Lord never did anything and never spoke anything, since what they maintained precludes there being any act or utterance of His. This has been explained at length elsewhere, for the purpose here is merely to indicate the principal outlines of the various methods and doctrines.

The negators said:

“If our methods for establishing knowledge of the Maker, the temporal origination of the heavens and the earth, and knowledge of prophethood are invalid] (3), then what is the way to establish these matters?” (4)

They replied:

[First]: We are not required (5) at this juncture to explain that. Rather, the purpose [here] (6) is to show that this is a newly introduced, innovated method which is known not to be