For this reason, it is invalid to make our rule for affirmation simply “affirm the attribute while denying any resemblance,” because were that permissible, a pretender could ascribe to Allah—exalted is He—every attribute of deficiency while at the same time denying resemblance. He could say that Allah feels sorrow, weeps, hungers, thirsts, and the like—traits from which Allah is utterly exalted—yet add: “Allah grieves, but not like the grief of His servants; He weeps, but not like their weeping; He hungers, but not like their hunger; He thirsts, but not like their thirst; He eats, but not like their eating, just as He rejoices unlike their rejoicing, laughs unlike their laughter, and speaks unlike their speech.”

The same pretender could also affirm for Allah numerous bodily organs while denying resemblance: “Allah has a liver unlike the livers of His servants, intestines unlike their intestines,” and other such things from which Allah is exalted—just as you claim that He has a face unlike theirs and two hands unlike theirs.

Then he could say to the one who rejects those attributions yet affirms joy, laughter, speech, face, and hands: “What distinction is there between what you have negated and what you have affirmed, once you deem the mere denial of resemblance sufficient for affirmation? I have remained within that very rule, for I am affirming these matters without tashbīh.”

Should the negator reply, “The difference lies in al-samʿ, that is, the textual evidence from the Qur’an and Sunnah: whatever Scripture establishes I affirm, and whatever it does not establish I do not affirm,”

the fabricator retorts, “The textual report is information, and information is evidence for what it reports, yet evidence does not work in reverse; therefore, the absence of a particular proof does not imply the inexistence of the thing in question, for it might be established by some other proof. Accordingly, what Scripture has not mentioned may nonetheless exist in reality even if Scripture is silent about it. It is well known that Scripture has not explicitly denied all these matters by their specific names: it nowhere denies sorrow, weeping, hunger, thirst, liver, stomach, or intestines. Since it has not denied them, they may indeed exist in reality; hence they cannot be negated without evidence.”

Thus the one who negates these attributes is refuted, for his denial rests on nothing more than