is the hadith on seeking Allah’s guidance:

“O Allah, I seek Your guidance through Your knowledge, and I seek ability through Your power.”

Thus, He is powerful and possesses power. Allah Most High said to Moses:

7:144 “I have chosen you over the people through My messages and My speaking to you.”

Thus, He speaks and possesses speech. He is the Most Great, who possesses greatness, as authentically reported from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace:

“Allah Most High says: ‘Greatness is My lower garment, and majesty is My cloak.’”

He is the All-Wise, to whom judgment belongs:

40:12 “Judgment belongs to Allah, the Most High, the Most Great.”

Muslims unanimously agree that if someone swears by Allah’s life, hearing, sight, strength, might, or greatness, his oath is binding and, if broken, requires expiation. These are His attributes of perfection, from which His names are derived.

Furthermore, if His names did not encompass meanings and attributes, it would not be permissible to describe Him using their corresponding verbs. One could not say that He hears, sees, knows, has power, or wills. For affirming what attributes entail depends on affirming the attributes themselves. If an attribute itself is denied, what it entails cannot possibly be affirmed.

Moreover, if His names conveyed no meanings or attributes, they would be underived, like mere proper names that are not assigned to their bearers on account of any quality they possess. All His names would then be equivalent, with no difference between what they signify. This is blatant denial of the obvious and manifest falsehood. Whoever makes “the All-Powerful” mean the same as “the All-Hearing” and “the All-Seeing,” “the Accepter of Repentance” mean the same as “the Avenger,” and “the Giver” mean the same as “the Withholder,” defies reason, language, and the natural disposition.

Denying the meanings of His names is therefore among the gravest forms of deviation concerning them. Such deviation takes several forms, of which this is one.

The second is giving His names to idols, as when people call them gods. Ibn ‘Abbās and Mujāhid said: “They diverted Allah Most High’s names from their true meanings and gave them to their idols, adding and subtracting. They derived al-Lāt from Allah, al-‘Uzzā from al-‘Azīz (the Almighty), and Manāt from al-Mannān (the Bestower).” It is also reported from Ibn ‘Abbās that he explained “deviate concerning His names” as “tell lies about Him.” This explains the intended meaning. The reality of deviation concerning His names is to turn them away