— “We do not strip Allah of any of His attributes merely because fault-finders find them offensive.” (1)

When the allegorizing negators sought to bring their scheme to completion, they coined vile epithets for the People of the Sunnah, calling them Hashwiyyah, Nawabit, Nawasib, Mujbirah, Mujassimah, Mushabbihah, and the like (2).

Out of their branding the Lord’s attributes, acts, Face, Hands, and wisdom with such names, and their tagging anyone who affirms them with those slurs, there arose (3)(4) the cursing of the people of affirmation and Sunnah, their being declared innovators, deviants, unbelievers, and deserving of punishment. They suffered at the hands of these deniers what the prophets and their followers had suffered from their enemies. This state of affairs will remain on earth until Allah inherits it and all who are upon it.

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The third cause: that the allegorizing innovator ascribes his interpretation and his innovation to someone of great stature and renowned reputation among the intelligent, or to a member of the Prophet’s household, or to one who enjoys (5) fair praise and an honest name within the ummah, in order to adorn it thereby in the hearts of the simple and the ignorant. For it is people’s nature to venerate the words of those whose rank is lofty in their eyes and to receive them with acceptance and inclination; and the loftier that speaker is in their estimation, the more complete their acceptance of his words becomes, until—