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The revealed texts have affirmed, and reason has demonstrated, that Allah possesses diverse attributes: knowledge and power, love and hatred, hearing and sight. If, moreover, it is necessary to affirm actions that subsist in His essence—as maintained by groups among the philosophers and speculative theologians, together with the great majority of scholars of hadith, jurisprudence, and Sufism, and the early generations of the Muslim community—and that these actions depend upon His will and power; and if what the revealed texts indicate is known, with an indication of it also [in] reason, as in His words:

“They have not esteemed Allah as He deserves. On the Day of Resurrection, the whole earth will be in His grasp, and the heavens will be rolled up in His right hand.” [al-Zumar: 67]

Then, since all the heavens are grasped in His right hand—and Ibn ‘Abbās said:

“The seven heavens, the seven earths, and everything within and between them are, in the Hand of the Most Merciful, no more than a mustard seed in the hand of one of you”—

and since reason establishes that He must be greater in every respect than His creatures and all that He has brought into being, for whatever existence and perfection they possess results from His power and will, He is therefore greater and mightier. If that is so, then His actions which