created things; rather, even as He has risen over His Throne, He sustains the Throne and its bearers by His power. Allah’s rising is not likened to the rising of created beings. Rather, the names and attributes that Allah has affirmed for Himself are affirmed for Him, any likeness to created beings is denied of Him, and it is recognized that nothing is like Him—in His Essence, His attributes, or His actions. Such a person is correct in his belief and agrees with the early generations of this Ummah and its leading scholars.

Their way is to describe Allah as He has described Himself and as His Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, has described Him, without distortion or negation, without specifying how His attributes are, and without likening them to those of creation. They know that Allah has knowledge of all things and power over all things; that He created the heavens and the earth and all that is between them in six days, then rose over the Throne; that He truly spoke to Moses; and that He revealed Himself to the mountain, reducing it to shattered rubble. They know that nothing is like Allah in anything with which He has described Himself.

They declare Allah free of all attributes of deficiency and imperfection, affirm for Him the attributes of perfection, and know that no one is equal to Him in any of His perfect attributes. Nu‘aym ibn Hammād al-Khuzā‘ī said:

“Whoever likens Allah to His creation has disbelieved, and whoever denies what Allah has described Himself with has disbelieved. Nothing in the descriptions of Allah given by Himself or His Messenger entails likening Him to His creation.”

And Allah knows best.