There is no impropriety in this whatsoever; the only impropriety arises when one ascribes to Him anything that is peculiar to created beings. The Lord—exalted is He—is utterly transcendent above being described by any of the creatures’ distinctive qualities, for all of those qualities conflict with the perfect excellence that is His by right. They are therefore deficiencies in relation to Him, even though they may be deemed perfections for the creature.

Every being’s perfection is commensurate with what is possible for it to possess. A created thing can never be eternal, self-subsistent by necessity, the Lord, free of all need for anything else, and so forth—attributes that are exclusive to God. Such perfection, then, belongs to Him alone. Likewise, in those perfections that are named in common—life, knowledge, power—the Blessed and Exalted Lord is distinguished by a mode that no creature can resemble. Thus the Lord is unique either in a type of perfection that none but He can be described with, such as His being the Lord of all worlds, or in a quality in which no one can equal Him, such as His life and His knowledge.

Once it is known that the Lord—glorified be He—deserves every attribute of perfection, it follows that He must be speaking, All-Hearing, and All-Seeing, for these are among the attributes of perfection; were He not characterized by them, He would necessarily be characterized by their opposites, which are defects.

Whoever supposes that perfection can only be known through scriptural transmission—like the author of al-Irshād—establishes the truthfulness of the Messenger by the proof of the miracle, which functions as God’s endorsement of the Messenger.