would be seen in the Hereafter, or that the Qur’an is Allah’s speech—revealed and uncreated—they branded him an anthropomorphist and denied that he was a monotheist.

The extremist wing of the Jahmiyyah, along with the philosophers and the Qarāmiṭah, went even further: they negated His most beautiful names and declared that anyone who says, “Allah is All-Knowing, All-Powerful, Mighty, Wise,” is an anthropomorphist, not a monotheist.

An even more radical group claimed that He must not be described by either affirmation or negation, for both, they alleged, entail likening Him to creation.

All of them thus fell into a form of anthropomorphism worse than the very thing from which they tried to flee. In shunning, as they imagined, any resemblance to living beings, they ended up likening Him to impossibilities, non-existent entities, and inanimate objects.