external entities any two that share something, let alone the Creator, Most High, sharing anything with another. Glorified and exalted is He.

The esotericist Qarmatians, like the Jahmiyyah who deny that Allah may be called by any name used for a created being, have misled people through the terms “resemblance” and “composition.” For this reason, the great majority of the various groups—including the Muʿtazilah, the Najjāriyyah, the Dirāriyyah, and the theologians who affirm the divine attributes—rejected their views. Indeed, even some philosophers rejected their views, although many of their opponents were themselves inconsistent.

For this reason, Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Nāshiʾ maintained that names used for both Allah and some of His servants apply literally to Allah and figuratively to His servants—the opposite of the position of the esotericist Qarmatians and the Jahmiyyah.