affirm the attributes (ahl al-ithbāt), saying that the attributes are additional to the Essence. They voiced it so only because the deniers—the Jahmites, the Muʿtazilites, the philosophers, and the like—maintained that there exists an Essence with no attributes. The affirmers therefore replied, “He has attributes that are additional to the Essence,” meaning: additional to the Essence you yourselves acknowledge. In short, we add in our affirmation what you have failed to affirm, for in your minds you posit nothing but a bare Essence, whereas we affirm what exceeds that stripped-down Essence. Yet, in external reality it is inconceivable that an Essence exist without attributes, or attributes exist without an Essence—just as it is inconceivable to have an absolute, unqualified animal, body, or human being.

Once this is clear, consider the one who calls all the conditions and concomitants without which a thing cannot exist “causes.” We say: if its existence depends on them, then the thing would be an effect. This is equivalent to his saying that such conditions and concomitants are “others,” whereas the Being who is necessary in Himself has no need of anything other than Himself. It is also like their claim: “If He possessed attributes He would be composite; whatever is composite depends on its parts; each part is other than the whole; and whatever depends on something other than itself cannot be necessary.” All such formulations are marked by vagueness, equivocation, and insinuation. What reason has actually proved to be impossible for the Necessary Existent does not support the conclusion they seek—one that is disputed by the Muslims and the followers of every revealed religion, nor even the conclusion contested by the attribute-affirmers, nor yet the conclusion challenged by those among the attribute-affirmers who speak of corporeality and the like.

Abu Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (1) had already detected many of their sophistries in this matter,