for their integrity and trustworthiness, men who protected the community’s rights and duties by conscientiously preserving the Sunnah.

He went on to say: The first matter with which we shall begin—the very purpose for which we have introduced this discussion—is to set out the names and attributes of Allah: those He has mentioned in His Book, those His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) clarified in his Sunnah, and those by which Allah has described Himself. We shall cite the statements of those who affirmed them, for it is not lawful for us to subject them to the verdicts of our intellects by seeking to determine their modality; rather, we have been commanded to submit.

He further said: After the oneness of Allah had been affirmed and His divinity acknowledged, Allah made Himself known to us once more. In His Book He reiterated, after having established the proof, what He had begun with—His names and attributes—and His Messenger confirmed this in word. The believers accepted it just as they had accepted the foundational declaration of monotheism contained in the phrase, “There is no god but Allah.”

He also said—affirming His Self in detail after having mentioned it in general—when He spoke to Moses, peace be upon him: “I have chosen you for Myself” (Qur’an 20:41), and: “Allah warns you about Himself” (Qur’an 3:30).