—exalted is Allah above whatever they associate with Him.”

“He is Allah, the Creator, the Originator, the Fashioner. To Him belong the most beautiful names. Whatever is in the heavens and the earth glorifies Him, and He is the Almighty, the All-Wise.”

There are many other such verses and authentic hadiths from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, concerning the names and attributes of the Lord, Exalted is He. They affirm His Being and attributes in detail and establish His oneness by denying that anything is like Him. Through this, Allah has guided His servants to the straight path. This is the way of the messengers, may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon them all.

As for those who have deviated and turned away from their path—among the disbelievers, the polytheists, those who were given the Scripture, and those included among them, such as the Sabians, the philosophers, the Jahmiyyah, the Qarmatians, the Bātiniyyah, and others like them—their approach is the opposite. They describe Him through detailed negations and affirm only an absolute existence that, upon examination, has no reality. It amounts merely to an existence in the mind that cannot be realized in the external world. Their position entails the utmost denial of His attributes and the utmost likening of Him to other things: they liken Him to impossibilities, nonexistent things, and inanimate objects, and deny His names and attributes in a manner that entails denying His very Being.

The extremists among them deny both sides of a contradiction with regard to Him, saying: “He is neither existent nor nonexistent, neither living nor dead, neither knowing nor ignorant.” For they claim that describing Him in affirmative terms would liken Him to existing things, while describing Him in negative terms would liken Him to nonexistent things.