ibn al-Ḥakam the Rāfiḍī (1) and those of their ilk, should the report about them be reliable.

One must hold with absolute certainty that Allah—glorified be He—is unlike anything whatsoever: not in His essence, not in His attributes, and not in His acts. His separateness from the created order and His freedom from sharing any of their qualities are far greater than what the wisest of creatures can grasp or the most eloquent of describers can express. Every attribute that would imply His being originated or that entails any imperfection—other than origination itself—must therefore be denied of Him. Anyone who alleges that a scholar of Ahl al-Sunnah has measured His attributes against those of created beings is either lying or mistaken.

If, however, the oath-taker intended by “the outward sense” the meaning that was obvious to the innate nature of the Muslims before the rise of sectarian whims and the scattering of opinions—the outward sense that befits His Majesty, exalted and transcendent is He—then that is indeed the same outward sense that applies to everything else (2) ascribed to Him of His names and attributes: life, knowledge, power, hearing, sight, speech, will, love, anger, pleasure, and His saying, “What kept you from prostrating to that which I created with My two hands” (3); and the ḥadīth, “Our Lord descends every night to the lowest heaven” (4); and the like. When such expressions are applied to us, their apparent meaning is that they refer to accidents or (5) bodies, because our very selves are of that nature. When they are applied to Allah—glorified and exalted is He—their apparent meaning is only what accords with His Majesty and befittingly matches