Al-Sharīf Abū ʿAlī ibn Abī Mūsā, Abū al-Faraj al-Maqdisī, and others—indeed, the entire body of statements transmitted from the early generations—support the same view. This is illustrated in the words of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn al-Mājishūn, a contemporary of Mālik in Madinah, who said:

“Now then, I have understood what you asked about concerning the errors the Jahmiyyah and those who follow them have pursued regarding the attributes of the Almighty Lord—He whose greatness escapes description and estimation, whose attributes leave tongues incapable of exposition and intellects unable to grasp His true measure … As for the One who neither changes nor passes away, who has always been and to whom nothing is comparable, none knows His ‘how’ save He Himself; how, then, could He ever be known?”

By contrast, some later theologians who contested this position maintained, “He has no quiddity that can be expressed in speech and no modality that can occur to the mind.” The debate exists even among the adherents of the four Imams.