for the fulfillment of one’s needs.¹ This may also comprise swearing an oath upon Him by His Names and Attributes.

As for the wording found in the ḥadīth of Abū Saʿīd:

“I ask You by the right of those who ask of You, and by the right of this my coming.”²

this narration is transmitted by ʿAṭiyyah al-ʿAwfī and is weak. Yet even if it were assumed sound, it still belongs to the same category: the right of those who beseech the Almighty is that He answer them, and the right of those who obey Him is that He reward them. Hence supplication and obedience are causes that elicit His response and reward; they constitute a form of seeking nearness to Him, turning toward Him, and taking Him as the means. Even were it regarded as an oath, it would be an oath by one of His Attributes, for His answering and rewarding are among His actions and utterances.

Accordingly, this resembles the Prophet’s words—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—in the sound ḥadīth:

“I seek refuge in Your pleasure from Your wrath, and in Your pardon from Your punishment; I seek refuge in You from You. I cannot enumerate praise of You; You are as You have praised Yourself.”³

Seeking refuge, however, is not valid with anything created, as Imām Aḥmad and other leading scholars have explicitly stated, and this is one of the proofs they adduce for the doctrine that Allah’s Speech is uncreated. Indeed, it is authentically reported in the Ṣaḥīḥ and elsewhere that the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—used to say:

“I seek refuge in the perfect words of Allah from the evil of what He has created.”⁴

They said: seeking refuge cannot be with something created. When certain people cited the wording “al-muʿāfāh” (well-being), the majority of Ahl al-Sunnah replied that well-being is one of Allah’s acts. The great majority of Muslims, both Sunnites and others, maintain that Allah’s actions subsist in His Essence and that the Creator is not the created. This is also the view held by most of the followers of Aḥmad, al-Shāfiʿī, and Mālik.