I said:
Thus it is clear that the leading authorities of the Kullābiyyah and the Ashʿariyyah affirm these attributes, for he contradicted his own teachers and concurred with the Muʿtazilah.
The expositor of his words, Abū al-Qāsim ibn al-Anṣārī (1), said:
“Know that the doctrine of our shaykh Abū al-Ḥasan is that the two hands are two real, independent attributes, additional to the very existence of the God—glorious is He—and the like. This was also stated by ʿAbdullāh ibn Saʿīd.
He added: Qāḍī Abū Bakr, in al-Hidāyah (2), inclined toward this view.”
I said:
The Qāḍī has declared this explicitly in all his works, such as al-Tamhīd (3), al-Ibānah (4), and others.
He said (5): “In the words of Abū Isḥāq (6) there is an indication that the dual form with regard to the two hands…"
(1) A discussion of him and of his book Sharh al-Irshad (Commentary on the Guidance) appears above, p. 643.
(2) Possibly the book Hidayat al-Mustarshidin fi al-Kalam (Guidance for the Seekers in Dialectics) by Abu Bakr ibn al-Baqillani. See Kashf al-Zunun by Hajji Khalifa, vol. 2, p. 2042.
(3) Ibn al-Baqillani devoted a chapter to this in his al-Tamhid (The Preliminaries), pp. 258–259, entitled “Chapter on the Fact that God Has a Face and Two Hands.” He cited the verse “And the Face of your Lord will remain, full of Majesty and Honor” (Quran 55:27) and “What prevented you from prostrating to what My hands have wrought?” (Quran 38:75) as proof, then examined those who denied or allegorized these two attributes.
(4) Its title is al-Ibanah ’an Ibtal Madhhab Ahl al-Kufr wa al-Dayanah (The Clarification Refuting the Doctrine of the People of Disbelief and Heterodoxy). Sezgin lists it among Ibn al-Baqillani’s works in Geschichte des Arabischen Schrifttums 1/4:51, adding no further details except that Ibn Taymiyya drew on it in al-ʿAqidah al-Hamawiyyah (The Hamawiyah Creed), p. 422; Ibn al-Qamm in Ijtimaʿ al-Juyūsh al-Islāmiyyah (The Gathering of the Islamic Armies), pp. 120–121; and Ibn al-ʿImād in Shadharāt al-Dhahab (Selections of Gold), 3:169–170. Brockelmann, in Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur 4:52, notes that Ibn Taymiyya mentions it in Maktūbāt al-Kubrā (The Major Epistles), 1:452. I have not been able to locate a copy.
(5) Author: Abu al-Qasim al-Ansari.
(6) Abu Ishaq al-Isfara’ini. His biography was provided above.