[Those who contend that the scriptural passages must be read contrary to their plain sense]:

As for the two camps who strip the verses of their outward meaning—by this I refer to (i) those who claim that inwardly these texts denote no divine attribute whatsoever, maintaining that Allah possesses no positive attributes at all and that whatever is called an attribute is either purely negative, purely relational, or a hybrid of the two; and (ii) those who concede only a limited set of attributes—whether seven, eight, or fifteen in number—or who affirm the so-called aḥwāl (ontological states) while denying the attributes themselves—