And one of the judges (1) renowned for his piety wished to show that he disowned the allegation (2) being made against us, so he only pressed the matter further (3), redoubling his insistence on denying any anthropomorphism or corporeality.
I said, “It has already been mentioned (4) in several places: ‘without distortion or negation, and without enquiring into how or drawing any likeness.’
[At the very beginning I wrote: ‘Part of faith in Allah is to believe in whatever Allah has attributed to Himself in His Book and in whatever His Messenger Muhammad ﷺ has attributed to Him, without distortion or negation and without enquiring into how or drawing any likeness.’
Then I said: ‘Whatever the Messenger has described his Lord with, in the sound narrations that those versed in knowledge have received with acceptance, must likewise be believed.’
I went on to say: ‘Regarding these and similar authentic hadiths in which the Messenger of Allah ﷺ tells us what he tells us, the saved faction—the People of the Sunnah and the Community—believe in them just as they believe in what Allah has reported in His Book, without distortion or negation, and without enquiring into how or drawing any likeness. Rather, they are] (5) the moderate middle among the sects of the ummah, just as the ummah itself is