the early generations.” These words have been falsely attributed to me. Their author’s inconsistency has already been established, as has the fact that he cited nothing from the early generations except reports whose weakness he himself acknowledged.

What I now state and write—although I did not write it in my earlier responses, but have often stated it in gatherings—is that no disagreement has been transmitted from the Companions concerning the interpretation of any of the Quranic verses about Allah’s attributes. I have examined the Quranic commentaries transmitted from the Companions and the hadiths they narrated, consulting as many large and small works as Allah Most High has willed—more than a hundred commentaries. To this very moment, I have not found a report from any Companion interpreting any verse or hadith concerning the attributes contrary to its commonly understood meaning. Rather, their statements affirming and establishing these meanings, and explaining that these are attributes of Allah, contradict the claims of those who reinterpret them in ways that Allah alone can enumerate. Likewise, those who transmit and recount their statements relate a great deal of this.

To complete this point: I have found no disagreement among them except concerning passages such as His words, Most High:

“On the Day when a shin is laid bare.”

It is related from Ibn ʿAbbās and a group of others that what is meant is hardship—that Allah will lay bare the hardship of the Hereafter. It is related from Abū Saʿīd and another group that they counted this among the attributes, on account of the hadith narrated by Abū Saʿīd in the two Sahih collections.

There is no doubt that the apparent meaning of the Quran does not indicate that this is one of the attributes, for He said:

“On the Day when a shin is laid bare.”

The word “shin” is indefinite in an affirmative statement. He did not attribute it to Allah, nor did He speak of