Likewise, the word “other” (ghayr) may be meant for something entirely separate from a thing, or it may be used for something by which the thing can be apprehended while remaining distinct from it. Hence, when people disputed about the attributes of God Most High—or, indeed, about the attribute of any subject or the part of any composite—whether one should say that it is “other” than the subject or not, one group declared, “An attribute of the subject, or a part of the whole, is not other than it, because it exists only through it.” Another group retorted, “On the contrary, it is other than it, because it can be known apart from it.” This was no more than a verbal disagreement. For that reason, the early generations (the Salaf) and the leading scholars refused to say of God’s attributes—His speech, His knowledge, and the like—either that they are “other” than Him or that they are not other than Him.

Accordingly, when Imām Aḥmad was interrogated during the Inquisition and al-Muʿtaṣim ordered his judge ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Isḥāq to debate with him, the judge asked, “What do you say about the Qur’an—is it God or other than God?” Imām Aḥmad countered with the case of knowledge: “What do you say about the knowledge of God—is it God or other than God?” The man fell silent. For if someone were to say, “The Qur’an is God,” that would be erroneous and would constitute disbelief; yet if he were to say, “It is other than God,” they would argue, “Whatever is other than God is created.” Imām Aḥmad therefore confronted them with the example of divine knowledge, for the same dichotomy applies to it, and it is impermissible to say that the knowledge of God is created. What further clarifies this is that the Prophet—