And if you should say, “Consensus had already been reached before their time,”
we reply: By Allah, you are right; yet those who reached consensus before them concerning these attributes also agreed on affirming all the other attributes and did not restrict them to seven. In fact, limiting them to seven contradicts the position of the Salaf as well as that of the Jahmites and the Muʿtazilites. In those days the people were only two camps—Salafīs and Jahmites—until the Sevener faction arose, fashioning a view midway between the two: they neither followed the Salaf nor remained with the Jahmites.

Another group said: “Whatever does not, in its apparent sense, denote limbs or parts—such as knowledge, life, power, will, and speech—must not be re-interpreted; but whatever apparently suggests limbs and parts—such as the face, the two hands, the foot, the shin, and the finger—must certainly be interpreted figuratively, for affirming it would entail composition and corporealism.”

The affirmers responded: “Our reply to you is exactly the same answer (1) that you yourselves give (2) to your opponents among the Jahmites and Muʿtazilites who deny the attributes. They say to you: ‘If an actual positive attribute—such as hearing, sight, knowledge, power, or life—were to subsist in Him, Exalted be He, He would become a locus for accidents, and composition, corporealism, and division would follow, just as you claim that if He possessed a face, a hand, or a finger, composition and division would follow.’ Whatever answer you offer them, we offer you.”

If you then say: “We affirm these attributes in a manner that does not make them accidents, nor do we call them accidents, so they entail neither composition nor corporealism,”—