Abū al-Ma‘ālī said:

“Chapter on Denying Any Equal or Likeness to Allah

Among the essential attributes of the Eternal—exalted is He—is His dissimilarity to all that comes into being. The Lord—glorified and exalted is He—resembles none of these things, nor does any of them resemble Him. Discussion of this subject concerns one of the greatest foundations of religion. One group went to extremes in negation and denied His attributes; another went to extremes in affirmation, likening Him to creation and deviating from the truth.

Those who went to extremes in negation said, ‘Sharing in any affirmative attribute entails resemblance.’ Accordingly, they said, ‘The Eternal—glorified is He—is not to be described as existent; rather, one should say that He is not nonexistent. Likewise, He is not to be described as living and knowing; rather, one should say that He is neither incapable, nor ignorant, nor dead.’ This is the doctrine of the philosophers and the Bātiniyyah (esotericists).

As for those who went to extremes in affirmation, they held beliefs that committed them to saying that the Eternal—glorified is He—resembles things that come into being. They attributed to Him form, bodily members, being situated in directions, composition, dimensions, and limits. Among their extremists are those who attribute flesh, blood, and bodily shape to the Eternal—exalted is He above what they say. They maintain that souls are eternal and have come to hold that they are of the very essence of the Eternal—glorified is He—and that they indwell individual persons.

If someone asks, ‘What does likening mean?’ we reply: The term ‘likening’ may denote believing that there is a resemblance; it may denote stating the resemblance between two things that resemble one another; and it may denote modelling one act on another.