“the Ever-Living,” “the All-Knowing,” “the All-Powerful,” and similar names, then this is unavoidable by agreement among those who affirm the divine attributes. Opposition to this is well known among the heretics and those who resemble them. Denying it amounts to outright negation of the divine attributes.

As for his statement, “Modality entails quantity and shape,” if he means that it necessarily implies these, it is well known that those who affirmed modality intended only the attributes peculiar to Him, as explained above. If this necessarily entails quantity, then this is precisely what his opponents maintain: nothing possesses an attribute without having a measure peculiar to it.

Most adherents of hadith and the Sunnah, among the followers of Imam Ahmad—may Allah have mercy on him—and others, do not deny that modality exists in reality. Rather, they say, “We do not know the modality.” They also say, “His quiddity cannot be expressed in words, nor can His modality be conceived in the mind.” Rather, it is as al-Sharīf Abū ‘Alī ibn Abī Mūsā, Abū al-Faraj al-Maqdisī, and others have said, and this accords with the statement of