The sixth argument:

Allah Most High relates that Abraham, His intimate friend—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—said:

“O my father, why do you worship that which neither hears nor sees nor can benefit you at all?”

And He, Most High, says:

“He said, ‘Do they hear you when you call, or do they benefit you or harm you?’ They said, ‘Rather, we found our fathers doing the same.’”

Thus, he argued against their divinity on the grounds that they neither hear nor see, neither benefit nor harm, even though each of them has a body and physical form, whether made of stone or anything else. Had this consideration alone sufficed as an argument, Abraham, the intimate friend of Allah, and the other prophets—may the finest blessings and peace be upon them—would have mentioned it. Instead, they argued as Allah did, pointing to their lack of attributes of perfection, such as speech, power, movement, and so forth.

The seventh argument:

It may be said: What Allah Most High has mentioned either indicates that the Deity, glorified be He, possesses some of these attributes, or it does not. If it does not, their argument is invalid. If it does, then it indicates that attributes of perfection are to be affirmed of Allah Most High: speaking to His servants, hearing, sight, power, and the ability to benefit and harm. This means that these verses are evidence for affirming the attributes, not denying them.

Those who deny the attributes do so only because they claim that affirming them entails corporeality and embodiment. Thus, the verses they invoke as evidence count against them, not in their favour. We have found this to be a consistent pattern in most of the verses invoked by those who deny the attributes: these verses indicate the opposite of what they seek to establish, not what they seek to establish.