Accordingly, the Lord is more deserving of all purely existential qualities, because His existence is more perfect and because He is the One who bestows them; He is therefore more deserving of possessing them. Likewise, the Lord is more deserving of being declared free of all purely privative qualities, because He is further removed from nonexistence than all other existing beings, because nonexistence is intrinsically impossible for His essence, and because His essence, by its very nature, excludes nonexistence. Where something involves both existence and nonexistence, He is more deserving of its aspect of existence and further removed from its aspect of nonexistence. This is a fundamental principle that should be understood.

Thus, when attributes of perfection—such as life, knowledge, power, speech, hearing, sight, and others—are affirmed of Him through this rational, analogical method, in which the highest description belongs to Allah, this constitutes sound inference. The same holds when similar methods are used to deny that He has any partner or child, or is subject to incapacity, ignorance, and the like. This is why Imam Ahmad and other imams employed such a method in the rational analogies with which they debated the Jahmiyyah. They used it in what they affirmed of Allah Most High, in what they denied of Him, and in refuting the statements of the Jahmiyyah.

Given this, it is well known that for an existent being to subsist in itself