than He. The proof that human minds cannot fully comprehend His attributes is their inability to comprehend the attributes of His smallest creature: so tiny that you can scarcely see it, it changes and passes away, and neither its hearing nor its sight can be seen. Yet the intelligence by which it moves about and contrives is harder for you to fathom and more hidden from you than what is apparent of its hearing and sight. So blessed is Allah, the best of creators and their Creator, the Master of masters and their Lord:

“There is nothing like Him, and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing.” {11}

[al-Shūrā 11]

Know—may Allah have mercy on you—that you have no need to strain to describe what the Lord has not described of Himself, since you cannot know the full extent of what He has described. If the full extent of what He has described is unknown, why strain to know what He has not described? Would that guide you to any act of obedience to Him, or deter you from any act of disobedience to Him? As for the one who denies what the Lord has described, through excessive probing and strained speculation, he has