two eyes, two ears, a tongue, and limbs, yet He called him ‘alone’ with all his characteristics.”

[Ibn Taymiyyah’s Commentary]

I say:

Neither in the speech of Allah and His Messenger nor in Arabic usage is the designation ‘one’ applied to something without attributes, for anything without attributes has no existence in reality.

Ahmad mentioned that the Jahmiyyah interpret Allah’s speech to Moses as meaning that He created someone to speak on His behalf. A group of his followers adopted this interpretation regarding this speech, or regarding His saying every night, “Who will call upon Me, that I may answer him?” Were that the case, the angel would say, “Allah is the Lord of all worlds,” as in the two Sahīh collections:

“When Allah loves a servant, He calls Gabriel: ‘I love so-and-so, so love him.’ Gabriel then loves him. He then calls out in heaven: ‘Allah loves so-and-so, so love him.’ Then he loves so-and-so—‘so love him’—and the inhabitants of heaven love him”—the hadith.

They have illustrated this by saying that a sultan orders a herald to make an announcement, and people then say, “The sultan announced.” Yet this is evidence against them: the herald says, “The sultan has ordered,” or “The decree is,” or similar expressions that make clear that the speaker is someone other than himself. If the herald were to say, “I have commanded you; if you do not comply, I will punish you,” or something similar, he would not be announcing on the sultan’s behalf. Indeed, if he said that, the sultan would punish him.

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Allah Most High describes Himself in His Book through detailed affirmation and general negation. By contrast, the Jahmiyyah who deny His attributes—both their speculative theologians and their philosophers—describe Him through general affirmation and detailed negation.