and al-Qādī Abū al-Husayn and Abū, although they disagree with him concerning some of what he affirmed, either because the hadith is weak or because it does not clearly support his conclusion.

As for likening, in the terminology of the speculative theologians and others, it means asserting equivalence. Two similar things are two equivalents: either can take the place of the other and serve as its substitute. They disagree over whether similarity in this sense of equivalence is possible in one respect but not another, and whether it consists in the entities themselves or in the attributes inhering in them.

This kind of likening is also excluded with respect to Allah. The only dissenters in this regard are those who liken and equate Him with creation, whom the imams described and condemned, as Imām Ahmad said: