is an animal, and differ in that the former is rational and the latter neighs, and in other respects, then the similarity and difference between their attributes correspond to those between their essences.

This is because an essence stripped of attributes exists only in the mind. The mind conceives of an essence stripped of attributes and of an absolute existence that is not individuated. As for things that actually exist, there can be neither an essence stripped of every attribute nor an absolute existence that is neither individuated nor particularized.

When someone who affirms the divine attributes says, “I affirm Allah’s attributes as additional to His essence,” what this really means is that we affirm them as additional to what the deniers have affirmed of the essence. For the deniers believed in the existence of an essence stripped of attributes, so those who affirm the attributes said: “We affirm attributes in addition to what these people have affirmed.” As for the actually existing essence itself, it is inconceivable that it could exist without any attributes whatsoever.

Rather, this is like someone saying: “I affirm a human being who is neither an animal nor rational, who neither subsists in himself nor in anything else, and who has neither power nor life, neither motion nor rest,” or something similar. Or it is like saying: “I affirm a palm tree that has neither stem nor trunk nor fibre nor anything else of that kind.” Such a person affirms something that has no reality outside the mind and cannot be rationally conceived.

For this reason, the early generations and leading scholars called those who deny the attributes “negators,” because the true import of their position is to negate the very essence of Allah, exalted is He—even though they themselves may not realize that their position necessarily entails such negation. Rather, they describe Him in two contradictory ways, saying: “He exists, is eternal, and necessarily exists”; then they deny