But if such likeness is absolutely impossible, how then can they claim that they resemble God Most High, when the likeness they affirm is outright polytheism in the very divinity that belongs to Him alone?

Their assertion that a single one of us, by his own power and choice, can set up a peer to God is itself sheer idolatry. Indeed, anyone who ascribes divinity to someone other than God—whether an angel or a prophet—has committed the gravest form of shirk. How much worse, then, is the case of one who attributes it to ordinary people and instructs creation to become gods, imitating the Almighty!

God, exalted is He, says:

“It is not for any human being to whom God has given the Scripture, wisdom, and prophethood to then say to the people, ‘Be servants to me instead of God.’ Rather, he will say, ‘Be people of God, because you teach the Book and study it.’ Nor will he command you to take the angels and the prophets as lords. Would he command you to disbelief after you have submitted?” (Āl ʿImrān 3:79–80).

For this reason, all who followed the path of these thinkers went astray; their very objective became to resemble God, and they argued on the basis of the report they transmit: “Adopt the character traits of God.”

Abū Ḥāmid composed a treatise on the Beautiful Names of God in which he promoted resembling God in every one of His Names, calling this “assuming His character traits”—even with regard to Names such as al-Jabbār (the Compeller), al-Mutakabbir (the Supremely Proud), al-Ilāh (the God), and the like—Names that, by explicit text and unanimous consensus, are exclusive to God and in which the servants have no share, just as the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said in the hadith