even to restore his very fingertips.” (Q 75:3-4)

“On the Day when they will burst from their graves in haste, as though racing toward a goal.” (Q 70:43)

He has always, together with His attributes, been eternal before bringing creation into existence. Such is Allah’s power, will, and decree; nothing can frustrate Him. Yet some creatures measure Allah by analogy with themselves and so dismiss the Resurrection, judging it impossible. They give no thought to Allah’s omnipotence, nor do they accord Him the estimation that is His due—an ignorance of Allah, exalted is He.

The author has already stated: “Eternal without beginning.” That means that nothing preceded Him, and that He is qualified by the attributes of perfection which are themselves both pre-eternal and everlasting. Just as He is the First without a beginning, so are His attributes; they are inseparable from Him, their pre-eternity being the very pre-eternity of Allah Himself. It is not, as the deviant groups claim, that He first existed devoid of attributes and then acquired them later. They assert this in order to avoid, as they imagine, positing a plurality of gods or a multiplicity of eternals whereby the divine names and attributes would share in Allah’s primordiality. We say—Glory be to Allah!—such a claim would entail that Allah, exalted be He, was deficient for a period of time and only reached perfection after those attributes arose. Far exalted is He above what they say.

Moreover, the pre-existence of the attributes does not imply the pre-existence of separate lords, for the attributes are not entities external to the One described; they are realities inherent in His very essence and are not independent beings in their own right.