and Allah, glorified is He, is far above eating. Touch, by contrast, is comparable to sight. Most scholars of hadith ascribe touch to Him, as do many followers of Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, Ahmad, and others, but they do not ascribe taste to Him.

The reason for this is that the Muʿtazilites who deny the divine attributes said to those who affirm them:

“If you say that He can be seen, then say that He can be perceived through all the other senses. And if you say that He is All-Hearing and All-Seeing, then ascribe all five kinds of perception to Him.”

All those who affirm the divine attributes replied:

“We describe Him as One who can be seen and whose speech can be heard, as the scriptural texts state. We likewise describe Him as One who hears and sees.”

The majority of the scholars of hadith and the Sunnah said:

“We also ascribe perception by touch to Him, because it is a perfection involving no deficiency, and the scriptural texts indicate it. Perception by taste, however, necessarily entails eating, which in turn entails deficiency, as explained earlier.”

A group of speculative theologians who affirm the divine attributes ascribed all five kinds of perception to Him in both respects: as perceiver and as the object of perception.

Some of them said that He could be the object of these kinds of perception, just as He can be seen, because they believed that existence is what makes something capable of being seen. They did not, however, say that He possesses these kinds of perception.

Most of those who affirm that He can be seen did not hold that mere existence is what makes something capable of being seen. Rather, they said that the basis for this consists of positive, existent realities—not that everything that exists can be seen. There is a difference between the two claims: the latter entails that every existent thing can be seen, whereas the former does not. If what makes something capable of being seen consists of positive, existent realities, without requiring any conditions involving nonexistence, then the more fully something possesses existence and the further it is from nonexistence, the stronger the grounds for its being capable of being seen.

Others among them denied everything apart from hearing and sight in both respects: perceiving and being perceived.