distinction between what they affirm and what does not exist. Yet they say, “He exists; He is not nonexistent.” Thus they contradict themselves, affirming Him in one respect and denying Him in another.

They also say, “He is absolute existence, distinguished by no attribute.” Yet people know that what is absolute cannot exist in reality, for nothing that exists is absolute, without any particular identity or distinction from anything else. Such a thing exists only in a person’s mental conceptions: one conceives of something absolute, even though it has no reality outside the mind. Thus these philosophizing Jahmīs who deny the divine attributes do not acknowledge the Creator—glorified and exalted is He—as existing apart from His creation. Rather, they either make Him an absolute conceived in people’s minds, make Him indwell created things, or say that He is the very existence of created things.

It is known that Allah existed before He created His creatures. When He created them, He did not enter into them, nor did He bring them into Himself. Nothing of His essence is within His creatures, and nothing of His creatures is within His essence. This is what the Quran and Sunnah indicate, and what the early generations of the Muslim community and its leading scholars unanimously affirmed.

The Jahmī deniers of the divine attributes among the philosophers, the Mu‘tazilah, and others—who subjected the Muslims to the ordeal mentioned earlier—held this misguided position. When Allah Most High granted the people of the Sunnah and the community ascendancy and victory, this denial remained in the hearts of many of their followers. They consequently began to appear at times alongside the esotericist Qarmatian Rāfidah, at times alongside the Jahmī proponents of union between God and creation, and at times to agree with them