As for the followers of the Salaf, al-Khattābī, Abū Bakr al-Khatīb, and others report their position as follows: The way of the Salaf is to take the hadiths and Quranic verses concerning the attributes according to their apparent sense, without describing their modality or likening them to creation.

Thus, we do not say that “hand” means power or that “hearing” means knowledge. Discussion of the attributes derives from discussion of the essence and follows the same pattern and example. If affirming the essence means affirming its existence, not its modality, then affirming the attributes likewise means affirming their existence, not their modality.

Al-Khattābī and al-Khatīb—two leading scholars of the Shāfiʿī school whose knowledge of transmitted texts is universally acknowledged, as is al-Khattābī’s understanding of their meanings—have thus informed you that the way of the Salaf is to take these texts according to their apparent sense, without describing their modality or likening them to creation. Allah knows that I have investigated the positions of the Salaf extensively, and I know of none among them who differed on this.

As for any later scholar who says that the way of the Salaf is to hold that the apparent sense is not intended, anyone who thinks well of him must understand that by “the apparent sense” he means the sense that befits the creature, not the Creator. There is no doubt that this is not intended. Whoever says that it is intended is a disbeliever once the proof has been established against him.

There are therefore two questions here: one concerning terminology and the other concerning meaning.

As for meaning, there are three possible positions concerning His words:

“The Most Merciful rose over the Throne,”

and similar texts.

One is to say: a rising over like that of