For this reason, the imams of Ahl al-Sunnah and the discerning speculative theologians prohibit saying, “He does not resemble things in any respect whatsoever,” for this would entail His nonexistence. Some groups among them nevertheless use this expression. Some of these, however, intend by denying resemblance to deny equivalence, so there is no substantive disagreement between them: they agree in denying equivalence in any respect whatsoever, as the Quran indicates and as we have explained elsewhere. This is also known through reason.
As for the negationists among the Jahmiyyah and their like, they intend by this nothing other than to deny resemblance in every respect. Yet everyone who has carefully examined this meaning recognizes that it can apply only to what is nonexistent. More than one leading speculative theologian has established this, including even Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Rāzī, whose words on the matter we shall quote.
Likewise, the term “attributing corporeality” is like the terms “combination,” “composition,” “division into parts,” and “subdivision”: some of what it signifies is unanimously rejected among