Therefore, Allah’s names and attributes—despite the resemblance they share with the names and attributes of created beings—are even more entitled to the principle that the Creator must never be likened to the creation, nor His reality to their reality.
(One speaks of the unseen by employing meanings that are familiar in the visible realm, even though the underlying reality is different.)
Information about the unseen cannot be grasped unless it is conveyed through terms whose meanings are already known in the world we observe. By means of what we know here, we come to understand something of what lies there, all the while recognizing the decisive distinction and realizing that whatever Allah discloses of the unseen is far greater than anything known in the visible domain.
And in that unseen there are things no eye has ever beheld, no ear has ever heard, nor has it ever occurred to