Thus, at times they deny that Allah takes anyone as an intimate friend, loves anyone, has affection for anyone, speaks to anyone, or speaks at all. They distort words from their proper meanings, interpreting these matters sometimes as His beneficence toward His servants, and sometimes as His will to bestow beneficence upon them. At other times, they deny that Allah loves or takes anyone as an intimate friend. They also distort words from their proper meanings concerning the servant’s love for Him, interpreting it as the desire to obey Him, or as love for Him on account of His beneficence.

As for rejecting falsehood:

Allah has declared Himself free of any parent or child, and has declared those who ascribe to Him a child, a parent, or a partner to be disbelievers. He, Most High, says in the surah that is equivalent to one-third of the Quran and describes the Most Merciful—no other surah of the Quran has as much authentically reported from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, concerning its merit. Indeed, the leading hadith scholars, such as al-Dāraqutnī, Abū Nuʿaym, and Abū Muhammad al-Khallāl, devoted separate works to its merit, and the compilers of the authentic hadith collections included numerous hadiths concerning it. In this surah, He says:

“Say, ‘He is Allah, the One;
Allah, the Eternal Refuge.
He neither begets nor is born,
nor is there to Him any equivalent.’”

This surah is the foundation upon which the imams rely in affirming Allah’s oneness, including Imam Ahmad, al-Fudayl ibn ʿIyād, and other imams before and after them. He thus denies that He has origins, offspring, or counterparts. These encompass all the relationships in which created beings stand—humans, animals, angels, jinn, and even plants and the like. For