of these attributes has a distinctive property not shared by the others. This is likewise our belief concerning Allah, even if it is said: “That entails multiplicity and plurality.” Likewise, we distinguish between the face, hand, and eye, on the one hand, and knowledge, power, and similar attributes, on the other, even if it is said: “This entails corporeality, composition, combination, and the like.”

This will be discussed in detail in its proper place, Allah willing. Yet we know that His essence is unlike the essences of created beings. Regarding all these attributes—whether understood as an entity subsisting in another or as a quality subsisting in another—we know that all the Lord’s attributes are unlike those of created beings. Revelation and reason rule out such likeness, while affirming the attributes in principle, just as they affirm His essence. For affirming an essence that does not subsist by itself is rationally impossible, as is affirming a self-subsisting being that cannot possess these attributes. Rather, reason requires that a self-subsisting essence possess attributes such as these.

According to these thinkers, then, nothing has been affirmed contrary to the dictates of imagination or mental imagery.