an essence endowed with them—let alone more perfect than it—and judges that the essence endowed with them is more perfect, then it is necessarily known that the essence cannot be perfect without these attributes. If it is then said, “His essence can be free of deficiency and deprivation of perfection only through these attributes,” the reply is:

Perfection without these attributes is impossible, and the absence of what is impossible is no deficiency. Deficiency consists only in the absence of what is possible. Moreover, once it is established that He can possess perfection, and that whatever attributes He possesses are necessary to Him, His essence cannot be devoid of these attributes. Thus, supposing His essence to be separate from these attributes is an impossible supposition.

If an impossible supposition is made concerning the essence, and it is said that the essence is deficient without it, this indicates the impossibility of that supposition, not the impossibility of its opposite. It is like saying, “If He were to die, He would be deficient”: this entails that He must be living. Likewise, if supposing His essence to be devoid of these attributes entails that it would be deficient, this necessarily entails that He possesses these attributes.

Furthermore, the claim that “He became perfect through something other than Himself” is not conceded. For we do not say of His attributes either that they are other than Him or that they are not other than Him. This is the position of the “imams of the early generations,” such as Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal and others. It is also the position chosen by accomplished scholars among those who affirm the attributes, such as Ibn Kullāb and others.

Some of them say: “I do not say of the attributes that they are not Him, nor do I say that they are not other than Him. Nor do I combine the two negations by saying: ‘They are neither Him nor other than Him.’” This is the position chosen by a group of those who affirm the attributes, such as al-Ashʿarī. I think that Abū al-Hasan al-Tamīmī’s position is this, or something similar.