“Clear reason” also demonstrates this, for what does not exist can neither be seen nor heard, according to clear reason and the agreement of rational people. Some among the “Sālimiyyah,” however, have said that He hears and sees it as existing in His knowledge, not as existing apart from Him. They did not say that He hears and sees it as something distinct from the Lord.

Once He has created His servants and they have acted and spoken, either we say that He hears their words and sees their deeds, or that He neither sees nor hears them. Denying this amounts to denying these two attributes and rejecting the Quran. Both are attributes of perfection involving no deficiency: one who hears and sees is more perfect than one who neither hears nor sees. Created beings possess hearing and sight, and it is impossible for created beings to possess attributes of perfection that the Creator—glorified and exalted is He—does not possess. In several passages, Allah Most High has censured those who worship what neither hears nor sees. Moreover, He is living, and a living being that does not possess hearing and sight possesses their opposites: blindness and deafness. That is impossible for Him. A fuller discussion of this belongs elsewhere.

“The point here” is simply that, if He hears people’s words and sees their deeds after they have come into existence, then either it is said that this is a new occurrence, and that He did not hear or see them, so that after creating them He does not hear or see them. If something new has occurred, it must be either something existent or something nonexistent. If it is nonexistent, then nothing new has occurred. If it is existent, it must subsist either in Allah’s own essence or in the essence of another. “The second” entails that this other is the one who hears and sees. It therefore necessarily follows that this existing hearing and seeing subsist in Allah’s own essence. There is no way around this.