He said (1): Another answer is this: if it were admissible to construe His words, “He unveiled something of Himself,” as meaning some of His signs, then one would have to construe His words, “And when He intends to destroy a people, He manifests Himself to it,” (2) as meaning that He manifests all of His signs to them. Yet it is plain that He has never destroyed a single town by revealing all His signs, for He has annihilated many lands, each land by a means different from that by which He destroyed another (3)(4).

Likewise, Imam Ahmad said—-as recorded (5) in his Refutation of the Jahmiyyah (6)—-when he cited the statement of Jahm (7): “He interpreted the Qur’an contrary to its proper meaning, denied the hadiths of the Prophet—Allah bless him and grant him peace—and alleged that anyone who attributes to Allah something (8) of what He has attributed to Himself in His Book, or that His Messenger has reported from Him, is a disbeliever.”

Ahmad thereby made clear that certain things pertaining to Allah are describable; that He is indeed described by them, so they are attributes and the Lord is characterised by them, and that He is to be affirmed with them (9). This is a sound position, for in His speech Allah has described what He has of knowledge, speech, and the creation He fashioned with His hand (10), and so forth, and He is characterised by these meanings He has set forth. For this reason they are called “attributes” (ṣifāt), for the term ṣifah is originally derived from His waṣf (description), just as jihah derives from wajh (face), and ʿiddah and waznah derive from waʿd (promise) and wazn (weight). This morphological pattern (11)—the form fiʿlah—may originally be a verbal noun, as in ʿiddah and waʿd; likewise ṣifah and waṣf, and it may also denote