the likeness posited. If you say, “Rather, it is included in what I mean by the likeness I have posited,” then the dispute would be merely verbal, and the discussion would return to the second alternative. You would then be told: “The one is not like the other in the respect you have mentioned.” Likewise, one may say at the outset that the parts need not be alike; rather, they may be unlike.

Thus, these people say concerning magnitude what the others say concerning attributes. They say: “The parts of a magnitude are like individual attributes. If He possesses attributes that are not alike, then He likewise comprises parts that are not alike. What evidence, then, establishes the invalidity of this?”

Denying this is among the positions the imams attributed to the Jahmiyyah, reporting that they said: “He is not two different things. He has no upper or lower part, no regions or sides, no right or left. He is neither light nor heavy, and He has neither colour nor a body.” This is despite what is found in the Book and the Sunnah, and in the consensus of the early generations of the Muslim community and its imams, describing Him as having two hands and a face—indeed, other attributes as well—which entail that these attributes have distinct realities, such that one cannot take the place of another. Knowledge cannot take the place of power; likewise, neither the face nor the hand can take the place of the other.