obedience, or the obedient person to disobedience.

Likewise are those who ascribe to Him no actions and will not allow actions to subsist in Him; they end up likening Him to an inanimate object in which nothing occurs. The same holds for those who deny Him speech that arises through His power and will, thereby portraying Him as a mute who is incapable of speaking. Equally blameworthy are those who strip Him of His attributes of perfection, likening Him either to a deficient being that lacks them or to something entirely non-existent. Such is the plight of every false negator who rejects what Allah has affirmed for Himself and what His Messenger has affirmed for Him.

The point is that the one who resorts to figurative interpretation flees from one issue (1) only to fall into its counterpart.

For instance, if he explains love, mercy, pleasure, anger, and wrath as merely will, we say: the very difficulty that compelled you regarding those attributes obliges you with respect to will as well, as has already been shown.

If he interprets face as meaning essence, we say: the same objection that applies to face applies to essence, for the word “essence” is employed for both the Eternal and the created, just as the word “face” is employed for both the Eternal and the created (2).

If he renders hand as power, recall that both Creator and creature are described with power; so if you fled from affirming hand because a creature possesses a hand, then flee from affirming power as well, for a creature is described with that too.

If he construes hearing and sight as knowledge in order to avoid anthropomorphism, the very thing he fled from confronts him in his interpretation of knowledge.

And if he interprets exaltedness (fawqiyyah) as nothing but exaltedness of domination, the same objection he escaped from regarding the exaltedness of essence meets him here, for—