‘Indeed, I am with you both; I hear and I see’ (Q 20:64); and He says: ‘Allah spoke to Moses directly’ (Q 4:164); and He says: ‘Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth’ (Q 24:35); and He says: ‘Allah—there is no deity but Him, the Ever-Living, the Self-Subsisting’ (Q 2:255); and He says: ‘He is the First and the Last, the Manifest and the Hidden’ (Q 57:3). Passages of this kind are many in the Quran.

Thus He, glorious is He, is the Light of the heavens and the earth, just as He has declared about Himself. He possesses a Face, a Self, and other qualities with which He has described Himself. He hears, sees, and speaks. He is the First—nothing precedes Him; the Last, abiding without end—nothing comes after Him; the Manifest, exalted above everything; the Hidden, whose knowledge encompasses His creation. About this He said: ‘And He is, of all things, All-Knowing’ (Q 2:29). He is the Ever-Living, the Self-Subsisting; neither drowsiness nor sleep overtakes Him.

After quoting the hadiths concerning the Attributes, he then said: These are the Attributes of our Lord, those with which He described Himself in His Book and those with which His Prophet described Him. None of them entails delimitation, anthropomorphism, or measurement: ‘Nothing is like unto Him, and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing’ (Q 42:11). No eye has beheld Him so as to confine how He is, but hearts have beheld Him in the realities—