Hanbal said:
“I asked Abū ʿAbdillāh about the ḥadith reports which relate that Allah—blessed and exalted—descends to the lowest heaven, that He will be seen, that He places His Foot, and other narrations of this kind.
Abū ʿAbdillāh replied, ‘We believe in them and affirm them. We do not ask how, nor delve into their inner meaning; we reject nothing of them. We know that whatever the Messenger has brought is true, provided (1) its chains of transmission are sound. We do not repudiate Allah’s statement, and we do not describe (2) Allah—blessed and exalted—with more than He has described Himself: without limit and without end; nothing is like Him.’
Hanbal said elsewhere:
‘There is nothing like unto Him in His very essence, just as (3) He has described Himself. The Blessed and Exalted One has summarized His own attribute and set its boundary when (4) He said, “Nothing resembles Him.” We worship Allah by His attributes—unbounded and unknown except through what He has described of Himself. Allah—blessed and exalted—said:
“He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing.” (5)