the essence existing in external reality to be detached from its necessary concomitants, so that one could ask whether the attributes are additional to it or not. This can, however, be supposed in the mind; this is the second sense of the term. If “essence” means what is conceived in the mind as stripped of attributes, then there is no doubt that the attributes are additional to this mentally conceived essence.

When a speculative theologian among Ahl al-Sunnah says:

“The attributes are additional to the essence,”

the precise meaning of his statement is that they are additional to the essence affirmed by his opponents. They affirm an essence devoid of attributes, whereas we affirm its attributes in addition to what they have affirmed. We do not posit in external reality a self-subsistent essence and then posit attributes additional to it. For how could one who cannot be anything but living have an essence devoid of life? Likewise, how could one who cannot be anything but knowing and powerful have an essence devoid of knowledge and power?

Those who distinguish between intrinsic and qualitative attributes say that self-subsistence, beginninglessness, and similar intrinsic attributes differ from knowledge and power. They consider those attributes without which the essence cannot be conceived in the mind and classify them as intrinsic; those without which it can be conceived, they classify as qualitative. There is no doubt that one cannot conceive of a self-subsistent existent that is not self-subsistent. This differs from something conceived as knowing, since its essence can be conceived without knowledge.

This supposition concerns only what they have conceived in their own minds. In actual reality, however, all the Lord’s necessary attributes are intrinsic attributes of His essence. He is knowing in Himself and in His essence, and He is knowing by virtue of knowledge; He is powerful in Himself and in His essence, and He is powerful by virtue of power,