“Do you know of any equal to Him?”

“And there is none comparable to Him.”

In these verses, He makes clear that Allah has no equal, no rival, no likeness, and no peer.

Whoever says, “Allah’s knowledge is like my knowledge, His power is like my power, His speech is like my speech, His will, love, pleasure, and anger are like my will, love, pleasure, and anger, His rising over the Throne is like my rising, His descent is like my descent, or His coming is like my coming,” or anything similar, has likened Allah to His creation and made Him their equal. Exalted is Allah above what they say! Such a person is misguided, wicked, and an advocate of falsehood—indeed, a disbeliever.

Whoever says, “Allah has no knowledge, power, speech, will, hearing, sight, love, pleasure, anger, rising over the Throne, coming, or descent,” has denied Allah’s most beautiful names and most exalted attributes and deviated concerning His names and signs. Such a person is misguided, wicked, and an advocate of falsehood—indeed, a disbeliever.

Rather, the position of the leading scholars and the early generations is to affirm the attributes while rejecting any likeness to created beings: affirmation without likening Him to creation, and declaring Him free of imperfection without denying His attributes. As Nu'aym ibn Hammād al-Khuzā'ī, al-Bukhārī’s teacher, said:

“Whoever likens Allah to His creation has disbelieved, and whoever denies what Allah has described Himself with has disbelieved. Nothing with which Allah has described Himself, or His Messenger has described Him, constitutes likening Him to creation.”

What further clarifies this is that Allah Most High has told us that in Paradise there are water, milk, wine, honey, meat, fruit, silk, gold, silver, and other things. Ibn 'Abbās, may Allah be pleased with them both, said, “Of what is in Paradise, nothing is found in this world but the names.” Thus, if