202 – 41541 Muḥammad ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Tamīmī narrated to us; he said: When a certain scholar would recite the verse, “And if you were to count the favor of Allah, you could never encompass it” (al-Naḥl 16:18), he would declare:

“Transcendent is the One who has granted no one, with respect to knowing His blessings, anything beyond the awareness of one’s own shortcoming in grasping them—just as He has granted no one, regarding perception of Him, more than the certainty that He cannot be encompassed. Thus He has made the very acknowledgment of our inability to comprehend His favors an act of gratitude, just as He has deemed the scholars’ admission that they cannot fathom Him an act of faith, knowing that His servants can go no further than that.”