names are attributes of the Essence, which is far removed from these characteristics and exalted above them, in keeping with transcendence and freedom from delimitation and the specification of a modality, their apparent meanings are known solely through revelation. There is no might and no power except through Allah.”

The reply is: Al-Khattābī said this according to the extent of his knowledge, since no report had reached him of any scholar classifying the hadith concerning ties of kinship among the hadiths about the divine attributes that are to be accepted as they have come. Al-Khattābī’s standing in scholarship is well known, but the leading religious scholars who are followed as authorities rank above al-Khattābī and his peers. His approach of dividing hadiths into three categories, together with what he said concerning the attributes known through revelation, resembles the approach of Abū