Darʾ Taʿâroud al-ʿAql wa-n-Naql - Ibn Taimiya - (10/70)

The reply is:

Neither premise is conceded; both are false: the conditional and the exceptive premises, the case being compared and its analogue, the original case and the derivative case.

As for his statement, “You have judged His essence and His intellectual apprehension of Himself to be one and the same in existence,” none of those who affirm the attributes—the early generations of the Muslim community, its imams, and its great majority, despite their various groupings—has ever made such a judgment. None of them has said that His knowledge of Himself is identical to Himself. Something resembling this is reported only from the Jahmī deniers of the attributes among the speculative theologians and philosophers, such as Ibn Rushd and others like him. Rather, His knowledge of Himself is like His knowledge of all other objects of knowledge in that it is not identical to Himself. None of those who affirm the attributes holds that knowledge is identical to the knower.

But should His knowledge be described as “other than Him”? This is a verbal dispute.

Some say, “His knowledge is other than Him.”

Others say, “It is neither identical to Him nor other than Him.”

Still others say, “We do not say, ‘It is neither identical to Him nor other than Him,’ thereby negating both together. Rather, I say separately, ‘It is not identical to Him,’ and separately, ‘It is not other than Him.’ I do not combine the two by saying, ‘It is neither identical to Him nor other than Him.’”

As for the early generations and the imams, such as Ahmad ibn Hanbal and others, they said none of these things. They refrained from saying without qualification that His knowledge is other than Him, just as they did not say without qualification that it is identical to Him. Nor did they say, “It is neither identical to Him nor other than Him,” negating both alternatives, whether together or separately. Rather, they disallowed the unqualified use of the expression “other,” because it is ambiguous: it may mean something separate from Him, or something that is not identical to Him.

فيقال: كلا المقدمتين ممنوعة باطلة: التلازمية والاستثنائية، المشبه والمشبه به، الأصل والفرع. أما قوله: حكمت بكون ذاته وعقله لذاته شيئاً واحداً في الوجود فهذا لم يحكم به أحد من مثبتة الصفات، الذين هم سلف الأمة وأئمتها وجماهيرها، على تنوع أصنافهم، فلم يقل منهم أحد: إن علمه بنفسه هو عين نفسه، وإنما يحكي ما يشبه هذا عن المعطلة الجهمية من أهل الكلام والفلسفة، كابن رشد ونحوه، بل علمه بنفسه في كونه ليس هو نفسه، كعلمه بسائر المعلومات، فليس العلم نفس العالم عند أحد من أهل الإثبات للصفات. ولكن هل يقال: إنه غيره؟ هذا فيه نزاع لفظي. منهم من يقول: إن علمه غيره. ومنهم من يقول: لا هو هو، ولا هو غيره. ومنهم من يقول: لا نقول: لا هو هو، ولا هو غيره فأنفيهما جميعاً، بل أقول: ليس هو إياه منفرداً، وأقول: ليس هو غيره مفرداً. ولا أجمع بينهما فأقول: لا هو هو، ولا هو غيره. وأما السلف والأئمة، كـ أحمد بن حنبل وغيره، فلم يقولوا شيئاً من ذلك، بل امتنعوا من إطلاق القول بأنه غيره، كما لم يطلقوا أنه هو، ولم يقولوا: إنه لا هو هو، ولا غيره، فينفوهما جميعاً: لا مجتمعين ولا منفردين، بل منعوا من إطلاق لفظ الغير، لأن لفظ الغير مجمل، يراد به المباين، ويراد به ما ليس هو إياه.