and any perfect being of every attribute involving existence and perfection, and of freedom from every privative attribute and deficiency. He is more deserving than anything else of being the opposite of, incompatible with, and distinct from what is nonexistent or deficient. Thus, if an attribute of existence and perfection is established for another, He possesses what is more perfect, higher, and more exalted in that respect; for to Him, glorified and exalted is He, belongs the highest description. If another is declared free of nonexistence or deficiency, His freedom from these is more complete, higher, and more exalted.

Regarding the first, Allah Most High says:

“It is He who originates creation, then repeats it, and that is easier for Him. To Him belongs the highest description in the heavens and the earth.” [al-Rūm 27]

Regarding the second, He says:

“And when one of them is given news of a daughter”—

the very one he has put forward as a likeness—up to His words:

“Those who do not believe in the Hereafter have an evil description, whereas Allah has the highest description.” [al-Nahl 58-60]

When it is established that His is the highest degree, both in the affirmation of existence and perfection and in the negation of nonexistence and deficiency, the mind here too takes a common element and abstracts it, even though it does not exist in external reality. Through this common element, it infers that what belongs to Allah is higher and more exalted in matters of existence and nonexistence. This is what some people call “terms of graded predication.” Thus the mind and the speaker proceed from affirming the element