resemble the Christians. They have fallen into these two errors: the former likened the Creator to created beings, attributing to Him deficiencies peculiar to creation, such as poverty and miserliness; the latter likened created beings to the Creator, attributing to them the distinctive qualities of lordship that belong to Allah alone.

Muslims describe Allah as He has described Himself and as His messengers have described Him, without distortion or denial, and without specifying how His attributes are or likening them to those of creation. Rather, they affirm for Him the attributes of perfection that He deserves and declare Him free of equals and likenesses. They neither deny His attributes nor liken them to the attributes of created beings. For whoever denies His attributes worships nonexistence, while whoever likens Him to creation worships an idol. Allah Most High says:

“There is nothing like unto Him, and He is the Hearing, the Seeing.”

It should also be understood that a speaker’s words are in themselves one and the same, although those conveying them do so in different voices. Thus, when someone recites the words of Labīd:

“Indeed, everything apart from Allah is vain,”

these words are Labīd’s, both in wording and meaning, even though those reciting them have different voices, none of which is Labīd’s voice. Likewise, when someone narrates a hadith of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, in its original wording, such as his saying:

“Actions are only according to intentions, and each person shall have only what he intended,”

these words are the words of Allah’s Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, both in wording and meaning, and its narrator is said to have transmitted the hadith in its original wording