among the scholars of hadith, the Sufis, the Mālikīs, the Shāfiʿīs, the Hanafīs, and others like them. Indeed, this is also found among groups that do not profess adherence to the Sunnah and the community, to hadith, or to the way of the early generations, such as the Shīʿah and others. Among them, both affirmation and negation reach extremes not found among the aforementioned groups.

Likewise, these opposing positions of negation and affirmation are found among the followers of the two Scriptures—the Torah and the Gospel. The Sabians, including philosophers and others, likewise hold opposing positions on negation and affirmation. Some of them even affirm what many speculative theologians who affirm the divine attributes do not affirm. In general, however, affirmation predominates among the followers of the messengers: the believers, the Jews, the Christians, and the rightly guided Sabians. Negation generally predominates among those who do not follow the messengers: the polytheists and the Sabians who introduce religious innovations.

Elsewhere, outside this response, we have set out the position of the early generations of the Muslim community and its leading authorities, quoting their own words and those of the people from all the various groups who transmitted their position. This leaves no group with an exclusive claim to affirming the divine attributes.

One example is what the shaykh of the Two Holy Sanctuaries, Abū al-Hasan Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik al-Karajī, mentioned in his book, which he entitled “Chapters on the Fundamentals, Drawn from the Eminent Imams, to Confute Those Given to Innovation and Idle Talk.” He was one of the leading Shāfiʿī authorities. In it, he quoted statements by al-Shāfiʿī, Mālik, al-Thawrī, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, and al-Bukhārī—the compiler of the Sahīh—