For that reason al-Bukhārī relates in his Ṣaḥīḥ (1) on the authority of Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, from Ibn ʿAbbās, that a man asked him about the words, “And Allah has always been Forgiving and Merciful” (2), “Mighty and Wise” (3), and “All-Hearing, All-Seeing” (4). It was as though the man imagined that these attributes had once existed and then passed away. Ibn ʿAbbās replied, “ ‘And Allah has always been Forgiving and Merciful’ (5) — He named Himself with that; that is the meaning of His statement, namely, He has never ceased to be so (6)….” Such is al-Bukhārī’s wording, and he recorded it in abridged form.

The version preserved by al-Būshanjī (7) Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Imām, from one of al-Bukhārī’s teachers (8) and transmitted by al-Barqānī in his own Ṣaḥīḥ (9), reads: “For Allah named Himself with that and no one else bestowed it upon Him. That is His saying, ‘And Allah has always been,’ that is, He has never ceased to be so.” Al-Bayhaqī (10) narrates it from al-Barqānī in this form.

Al-Ḥumaydī cites it with the wording: “Indeed, Allah appointed for Himself and named for Himself those attributes, making Himself thus; no one other than Him assigned them to Him. His words ‘And Allah has always been’ mean: He has never ceased to be so.” (11)

And Yaʿqūb ibn Sufyān (12) records it on the authority of Yūsuf ibn ʿAdī, one of al-Bukhārī’s teachers: