so Allah Most High is worshipped in accordance with His attributes, which are neither delimited nor known except through His own description of Himself. The Most High says: ‘And He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing.’ {11} [al-Shūrā 11]”

Hanbal said elsewhere: “He is All-Hearing, All-Seeing, without limit or measure. Those who describe Him cannot encompass His attributes. His attributes are of Him and belong to Him. We do not go beyond the Quran and hadith: we say what He has said and describe Him as He has described Himself—exalted is He—and go no further. The descriptions of those who describe Him cannot encompass Him. We believe in the entire Quran, both its clear and its ambiguous passages. We do not strip Him of any of His attributes because of denunciations directed against it.

“What He has described Himself with—speaking, descending, meeting privately with His servant on the Day of Resurrection, and placing His covering over him—all indicates that Allah Most High will be seen in the Hereafter. Imposing limits in this matter is an innovation. One must submit to Allah’s command, without assigning Him any description or limit beyond what He has said of Himself: All-Hearing, All-Seeing. He has always been One who speaks, who lives, who knows, and who forgives—the Knower of the unseen and the seen, the Knower of all hidden things. These are His attributes, with which He has described Himself; they must not be dismissed