The leading authorities who hold this view have explicitly stated that He “moves,” as Harb al-Kirmānī reported from Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamāʿah, naming among them Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Saʿīd ibn Mansūr, Ishāq ibn Ibrāhīm, and others. Likewise, ʿUthmān ibn Saʿīd al-Dārimī reported this from Ahl al-Sunnah and counted the denial of movement with respect to Allah, the Almighty and Majestic, among the teachings of the Jahmiyyah that the early generations rejected. He said: “Every living being moves, and whatever does not move is not alive.” Some of them said: “If a Jahmī tells you, ‘I disbelieve in a Lord who moves,’ say, ‘I believe in a Lord who does whatever He wills.’”

Those who hold this view say that whoever considers these acts impossible for Him and beyond His power has placed Him below inanimate things. Although an inanimate thing does not move by itself, it can nevertheless undergo movement. Those who deny such acts, however, say that He, exalted is He, cannot admit of this in any respect and that movement is impossible for Him. Yet movement and action are attributes of perfection, like knowledge, power, and will. Those who deny these attributes have stripped Him of attributes of perfection, and so have these Kullābiyyah.

As for those “deniers of the attributes,” when they are told: If He were not living, knowing, hearing, seeing, and speaking, it would necessarily follow that He was dead, ignorant, deaf, blind, and mute. These are deficiencies from which He must be declared free, for He, glorified is He, has created beings that live, hear, see, speak, know, possess power, and move. He therefore has a greater right to these qualities, for every perfection found in a created being, which is an effect, derives from the perfection of the Creator, whom they call an efficient cause.