knowledge of it, it makes no difference. For the question remains unless the one affirming the attributes affirms an infinite number of them. This, however, overturns the principle of anyone who maintains that nothing infinite exists. Otherwise, if he affirms a finite number of attributes, the counterargument holds, whether their number is known or not.

The distinction drawn between essential and accidental attributes, on the grounds that the latter require an agent whereas the former do not, is invalid. This holds only according to those who say that essences are neither produced nor brought into being, as some philosophers and others maintain. By contrast, Ahl al-Sunnah and their theologians agree that the realities of all created things are themselves created and made. Indeed, they have no external reality apart from what exists externally; anything beyond that is merely a mental representation. Whatever of this exists in people’s minds, it is Allah Most High who placed it there.

Allah, glorified be He, is the One who “created and proportioned,” who “determined and guided,” who “created—created man from a clinging substance,” who “taught by the pen—taught man what he did not know,” and who “created man” and “taught him eloquence.”

Thus, his statement that “essential attributes are not affirmed of a thing as attributable to its agent” is false. Rather, every attribute of every created thing is attributable to Allah Most High, for He created each thing together with its attributes. Nothing in any created thing—whether its essence or its attributes—exists without Allah Most High having created it and brought it into being.

Furthermore, every attribute inseparable from the thing possessing it is such that the thing cannot exist without it. If that thing depends on an agent, then the agent produced it together with its attributes; and if it is independent of