are they creators, providers, givers of life and causes of death, or are they created beings with no power to harm or benefit? Once they name them and describe them with the attributes they deserve, their error becomes clear.

He, exalted is He, said:

“Or are you informing Him of something He does not know on earth?”

Whatever is not known to Him to exist is false and has no reality. If it existed, He would know it to exist.

“Or merely speaking empty words?”

That is, words outwardly uttered by the tongue, with no reality in the heart; rather, they are lies and fabrications.

As for their statement that “name” means “naming,” namely, the spoken expression: what they call “naming” is precisely what everyone calls the name. Naming consists in assigning a name, declaring something to be a name, and the like. They have conceded that this is what the word “name” most often means. Yet they claim that the word ism (“name”), spelled “alif, sīn, mīm,” originally denotes the entity itself, and that naming is called a “name” because it signifies the entity itself—thus applying the name of what is signified to that which signifies it. They illustrated this with the word “power.”

But this is not so. Rather, tasmiya (“naming”) is the verbal noun in the sequence sammā, yusammī, tasmiyatan (“he named, he names, naming”). Naming is uttering and speaking a name; it is not the name itself. The names of things are the expressions that signify them, not the things themselves. Calling the object of power “power” is an instance of using a verbal noun to denote its object. This is common and widespread in the language, as when a created thing is called “creation,” or when people say, “a dirham of the ruler’s minting,” meaning one minted by the ruler. There are many similar examples.

Ibn ‘Atiyya followed their approach and said:

“The word ism (‘name’), spelled ‘alif, sīn, mīm,’ occurs in some passages of eloquent speech with the meaning of the thing named, and occurs in other passages