Section: Those who have strayed from the path of the messengers and their followers concerning Allah’s names and attributes
The first division: the Assimilators (mumaththila)

Section: Those who deviate from the path of the messengers and their followers in Allah’s names and attributes
Those who diverge in this field fall into two camps: the Assimilators and the Negators (muʿaṭṭila). Each has gone to excess on one side and fallen short on the other. The Assimilators have been extreme in affirmation and deficient in negation, whereas the Negators have been extreme in negation and deficient in affirmation. Both parties have therefore abandoned the balanced middle course.

The first camp: the Assimilators
• Their approach: they affirm for Allah attributes in a way that makes them identical to the attributes of created beings. They say, for example, that Allah has a face, two hands, and two eyes just like our faces, our hands, and our eyes, and so on.
• Their argument: they contend that Allah speaks to us in the Quran using language we can understand. Since, they say, we only understand what we can observe, when He addresses us about the unseen with certain terms we must interpret them according to what is familiar in the visible world.
• Their doctrine is invalid, refuted by revelation, reason, and sensory experience:
– Revelation: Allah the Exalted says, “There is nothing like unto Him, and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing” (Q. 42:11), and He says, “So do not set up likenesses for Allah” (Q. 16:74). In the first verse He denies that He has any equal while affirming hearing and sight for Himself; in the second He forbids striking comparisons for Him. Thus these two verses combine both denial and prohibition.
– Reason: the intellect demonstrates the falsity of assimilation from several angles:
First: the fundamental disparity between Creator and creature in essence and manner of existence necessarily entails disparity in attributes, for every attribute befits its possessor; meanings and qualities are conditioned and delimited by the entity to which they are ascribed