denial of His attributes, and rejection of likening Him to creation. Affirming Allah’s oneness may be summed up in a single statement: whatever human understanding and thought conceive, Allah—glorified be He—is unlike it. ‘There is nothing like unto Him, and He is the Hearing, the Seeing.’ [Surah al-Shūrā 11]”

He said: Abū al-Qāsim al-Nasrābādhī said, “Paradise endures because He sustains it, whereas His remembrance of you and His love for you endure by virtue of His everlastingness. What a difference between that which endures by virtue of His everlastingness and that which endures because He sustains it!”

Al-Qushayrī said, “What Shaykh al-Nasrābādhī has said represents the utmost precision in understanding. For the people of truth have said that the attributes of the Eternal One’s essence—glorified be He—endure by virtue of His everlastingness, exalted is He. Thus, he drew attention to this issue, and to the fact that whatever endures does so by virtue of its endurance, contrary to what the opponents of the truth have said.”