For Islam occupies the median position among all faith-communities, standing between the opposing extremes; and within Islam the Sunnah holds the same balanced place that Islam itself holds among the religions. Thus, in their view of God’s attributes, the Muslims tread a middle course between the Jews—who likened the Creator to the creation and ascribed to Him qualities that belong only to created beings, qualities of deficiency, saying, for example, that God is poor, that He is stingy, or that He grew weary after creating the universe and therefore rested—and the Christians, who went to the opposite extreme by likening the creation to the Creator, granting a created being the attributes that belong solely to the Creator and declaring, “He is God.”

The Muslims, on the other hand, affirm for the Creator every attribute of absolute perfection, declare Him far above all attributes of deficiency, and proclaim that nothing can ever be His equal in any of His perfect attributes. He is utterly transcendent above every imperfection, and in His perfection no created thing resembles Him.