The approach of the early generations was to describe Allah as He described Himself and, at times, as His Messenger described Him, without distortion or denial, and without specifying how His attributes are or likening Him to created beings.

Those who oppose the messengers describe Him through negations: “He is not this; He is not that.” When they are told, “Then affirm what He is,” they say, “He is absolute existence,” or, “An essence without attributes.” Yet clear reason establishes that what is absolute on condition of absoluteness exists only in the mind, not in concrete reality. What is absolute without any condition does not exist externally as an absolute, but only as a determinate particular. In their account, the Lord has no reality distinct from created beings. Rather, they either deny Him altogether or make Him the existence of created beings, a part of them, or an attribute of them.

As for ambiguous expressions, they withhold judgment on their meaning. Thus, when some people say, “Allah is in a direction or a spatial location,” and others say, “Allah is neither in a direction nor in a spatial location,” they ask each speaker what he intends, since the terms “direction” and “spatial location” are ambiguous and have multiple meanings.

They say: Nothing exists except the Creator and creation. Allah Most High is transcendent and separate from His creatures. He, glorified be He, created them separate and distinct from Himself, outside His essence. Nothing of His essence is within His creatures, and nothing of His creatures is within His essence. Were He not separate from them, He would either be intermingled with them, indwelling in them, or a locus in which they dwell. Allah Most High is far above that. Alternatively, if He were neither separate from them nor intermingled with them, He would be nonexistent. Allah Most High is far above that.

The Jahmiyyah, who deny the attributes, sometimes make statements that entail indwelling and union, or explicitly affirm