in others, such as those among the People of the Scripture who believed in some messengers but not others, and those among the philosophers who believed in some of what the messengers brought but not all of it. Some innovators within the religious communities—Muslims, Jews and Christians—have fallen into error in this way. Specious arguments arose in their minds which they thought disproved what the messengers had conveyed concerning Allah Most High’s names and attributes. They therefore supposed that they were obliged to give their own views precedence over the revealed texts. These specious arguments have been discussed at length elsewhere, where the errors of the philosophically inclined Jahmiyyah, the Muʿtazilah, and those misguided followers who agreed with them have been explained.

The guiding principle in affirming the divine attributes is to uphold the position of the early generations of this Ummah and its leading scholars: Allah is to be described as He described Himself and as His Messenger described Him, while safeguarding this description against distortion, likening Him to creation, specifying how His attributes are, or negating them. Nothing is like Allah in His essence, His attributes or His actions. Whoever denies His attributes negates them, and whoever likens His attributes to those of His creatures likens Him to creation. What is required is to affirm His attributes while denying that they resemble the attributes of created beings: affirmation without likening Him to creation, and declaring His transcendence without negating His attributes. As Allah Most High says:

“There is nothing like Him”

—this refutes those who liken Him to creation—

“and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing”

—this refutes those who negate His attributes. Thus, whoever likens Him to creation worships an idol, while whoever negates His attributes worships a nonentity.

“The way of the messengers”—may Allah’s blessings be upon them—is to affirm Allah’s attributes of perfection in detail and to declare, in general terms, that He bears no likeness to creation. Their way is therefore “detailed affirmation” and “general negation.” The heretics among the philosophers, the Qarāmitah, the Jahmiyyah and others like them follow the opposite course: detailed negation and general affirmation.