for it spares one from overstepping the limits of the speech of Allah and that of His Messenger ﷺ through anthropomorphism, or through distortion and unfounded reinterpretation.

Their approach is the safer one because knowledge of the manner (kayfiyyah) of Allah’s attributes is grounded in transmitted revelation, not in the ever-inconsistent human intellect. It is also the sounder and wiser course, for with matters conveyed by revelation and belonging to the unseen, true wisdom is to receive them exactly as they have come, without alteration; that is the furthest extent of human understanding in this field. Thus, the way of the early generations is the most knowledgeable and judicious, on two conditions:

1. Avoiding any form of comparison or likeness, for Allah says, “Nothing is comparable to Him, and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing” (Quran 42:11).

2. Refraining from probing the modality: one must not claim that the mode of a divine attribute is such-and-such.

Whoever affirms Allah’s attributes as He has described Himself, or as His Messenger ﷺ has described Him, while steering clear of both anthropomorphism and speculation about modality, attains safety, knowledge, and wisdom. Anyone who takes a different route will arrive at no sound conclusion; his course will end either in stripping the attribute of all meaning—outright negation—or in falling into anthropomorphism, and both are misguidance.