[Ibn Taymiyyah’s Commentary]

I say: The approach adopted by these scholars is to say that the Essence is beginningless and that the attributes are beginningless, but not to say that the Essence and the attributes are two beginningless things, because this would suggest otherness. They do not describe the attributes without qualification as other than the Essence.

They follow three approaches concerning the expression “otherness.” The first is the approach of the imams, such as Imam Ahmad and others. I believe it is also the position of Ibn Kullāb and others, and Abū Ishāq al-Isfarāyīnī has mentioned it. They do not say that the attribute is the One possessing it, nor that it is other than Him; nor do they say that it is neither the One possessing it nor other than Him. This is because the word “other” is ambiguous, so they neither deny nor affirm it without qualification.

The second approach is the one reported from al-Ash‘arī himself. He said: “I say separately that the attribute is not the One possessing it, and I say that it is not other than the One possessing it. But I do not combine the two negations by saying that it is neither the One possessing it nor other than Him.”

Likewise, Abū al-Hasan al-Tamīmī and those who follow this approach say of knowledge and similar attributes that it is not other than Allah, and that the attributes are not other than one another, just as they say that the attributes are not Allah Himself. Similarly, they say that the One possessing the attributes is beginningless and that the attribute is beginningless, but when speaking of them together, they do not say “two beginningless things”—just as they do not combine the negations by saying, “It is neither the One possessing it nor other than Him.”

The third approach is that of those who combine the two negations, as do Ibn al-Bāqillānī, al-Qādī Abū Ya‘lā, and others. These scholars may speak without qualification of affirming two beginningless things: one being the attribute, and the other the One possessing it, as they have stated in their books.

And when the Mu‘tazilah argue against them that, if His attributes are beginningless, two beginningless things must be affirmed,