and that, if His knowledge were beginningless, it would be a deity, they reply that the two being beginningless does not entail their being alike. Blackness and whiteness, for example, are both different from substance, yet this does not entail their being alike. Nor does “beginningless” mean “deity,” for the word qadīm describes something as having existed far back in time. Thus, a building or house is called “old” when its antiquity is emphasized.

The meaning of “deity” is not derived from this. Moreover, a prophet comes into existence, as do his attributes. The fact that the one possessing the attributes is a prophet does not require his attributes to be prophets merely because they too came into existence. Likewise, if the attributes and the One possessing them are beginningless, this does not require the attributes to be deities merely because they are beginningless. A fuller discussion of this belongs elsewhere.

[Ibn Sīnā’s Discussion of the Attributes in al-Risālah al-Adhawiyyah and Ibn Taymiyyah’s Commentary]

As for Ibn Sīnā’s statement:

“Is He one in Essence despite the multiplicity of attributes, or receptive to multiplicity? He is exalted above it in any respect.”

He may be answered as follows:

The divine Book abounds in affirmations of attributes for Allah Most High, such as knowledge, power, mercy, and others. No two rational people disagree that the texts do not indicate the denial of the attributes; rather, they indicate the position of those who affirm them. The most that those who deny the attributes claim is that the apparent meaning of the texts indicates this affirmation, but that it can be interpreted otherwise on the basis of opposing evidence.

There is no doubt that what he has stated necessarily follows for those who deny the attributes. For if their position were the truth, it would have been necessary to explain it; and if it were not explained, then at the very least silence should have been maintained concerning