they observed of the harmony of His acts with wisdom, their consistency in their courses, and their proceeding in accordance with their idlāl.”

This is because a single, coherent, orderly act cannot proceed from two agents, and can proceed only from one who possesses knowledge and power, as explained elsewhere.

[Return to al-Khattābī’s discussion in al-Ghunya]

These attributes and others like them can be known through reason. He said:

“Then they learned His remaining attributes through revelation, from the revealed Book.”

These include the attributes known through revealed reports, such as His Face, His two Hands, His rising over the Throne, and the like.

Al-Khattābī said:

“As for accidents, reliance on them either serves as an excuse, or establishing the validity of the inference drawn from them is difficult and impracticable. This is because people have differed greatly concerning them. Some say, ‘There is no accident in the world,’ denying the existence of accidents altogether. Others say that they subsist independently, no different from substances in this respect. There are other disagreements concerning them as well.

“They have advanced powerful objections to their existence. Thus, reasoning from them and relying on the arguments concerning them is valid only after resolving those objections and freeing oneself from them. The method which