Likewise, His words:

“Glorify the name of your Lord, the Most High, who created and proportioned, and who determined and guided.” [al-A‘lā: 1–3]

And Moses’ words to Pharaoh:

“Our Lord is He who gave each thing its form and then guided it.” [Tā Hā: 50]

And other passages like these.

According to these people, He has created nothing and taught no one; indeed, He Himself has no knowledge. How, then, can He teach and guide others?

[Continuation of Ibn Malkā’s discussion in al-Mu‘tabar and Ibn Taymiyyah’s commentary on it]

Abū al-Barakāt said:

“As for the rational, demonstrative answer, we say: His perfection does not derive from His action. Rather, He acts by virtue of His perfection, and His action proceeds from it. His intellection is one of His acts; thus, His intellection proceeds from His essential perfection, in which there is no basis for conceiving or asserting any deficiency. For deficiency in the essence of the First Principle is inconceivable, since He is one. Deficiency is conceivable only where increase and decrease are possible, and increase and decrease alike are attributes of multiplicity and otherness: within multiplicity, one can conceive of fewness, and in increase, of decrease, each measured against the other.

“But where there is neither multiplicity nor otherness, but pure unity, no deficiency can be conceived. How could it be otherwise, when deficiency is a relational attribute, as when one says, ‘Such-and-such is less,’ just as one says, ‘Such-and-such is more’?

“So, the deficiency imagined in the absolutely one essence—what deficiency could it be? And a deficiency in what