worthy of worship as God. Thus Abraham, peace be upon him, reproached his father for taking as a deity something that neither hears nor sees, saying, “My father, why do you worship that which neither hears nor sees, nor can it benefit you in the least?” (Maryam 42).

Fifth: Every existent thing must possess attributes; the existence of a wholly attribute-less essence is inconceivable. Therefore, the Necessary Being—the Creator—must be qualified by the attributes that befit Him.

Sixth: The claim that Allah’s names are mere interchangeable proper nouns that refer only to His essence and convey no distinct meanings is untenable. The Qur’an and the Sunnah unanimously show that each name points to its own specific meaning, even though they all refer to the same One who is named and described. Allah is the Ever-Living, the Self-Sustaining, the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing, the All-Knowing, the All-Powerful: the Named and Described is one, while the names and attributes are many. Do you not see that Allah calls Himself by multiple names in a single passage, as in: “He is Allah; there is no god but He, the Sovereign, the All-Holy, the Source of Peace, the Granter of Security, the Overseer, the Almighty, the Compeller, the Supremely Great” (al-Hashr 23)? Were these names completely synonymous, mentioning them together would be pointless, offering no additional benefit.

Seventh: To say that Allah is Knowing without knowledge, Powerful without power, Hearing without hearing, and so on, is a falsehood that contradicts both Arabic and every other language. In every language it is understood that a derivative noun signifies the root meaning from which it is derived. No one calls a person “knowing” who possesses no knowledge, “powerful” who has no power, or “hearing” who lacks hearing.

Consequently, Allah’s names must signify the attributes that befit Him, and it is therefore obligatory to affirm for the Creator of the earth