and the same answer applies if they say, ‘His knowledge, life, speech, hearing, sight, and all His other essential attributes must be accidents,’ appealing to what is found in experience as their justification.”

He also said:

“If someone asks, ‘Do you then say that He is everywhere?’ he is answered: Allah forbid! Rather, He is established above His Throne, as He stated in His Book:

‘The Most Merciful rose over the Throne.’

And Allah, exalted is He, said:

‘To Him ascends good speech, and righteous deeds raise it.’

And He said:

‘Do you feel secure that He who is above the heaven will not cause the earth to swallow you as it suddenly shakes?’”

He said:

“If He were everywhere, He would be inside a person’s belly and mouth, in latrines, and in places one prefers not to mention. He would necessarily increase as places increased, whenever He created places that had not existed, and decrease as they decreased, whenever places that had existed ceased to exist. It would also be proper to turn to Him in supplication toward the earth, behind us, to our right, or to our left. Yet the Muslims have unanimously agreed to the contrary and have deemed anyone who says this mistaken.”

He also said in this book:

“His essential attributes, which He has always possessed and will always possess, are life, knowledge, power, hearing, sight, speech, will, everlastingness, the Face, the two Eyes, the two Hands, anger, and pleasure.”

He said more than this in Kitāb al-Tamhīd (The Book of Introduction), but I do not have a copy at hand. His statements and those of other theologians on matters of this kind are plentiful for anyone who seeks them, although the Book, the Sunnah, and the reports from the early generations suffice us without recourse to any other discourse.