And the extremists among the philosophers and the Qarmatians went further, denying His most beautiful names and saying: “Whoever says that Allah is All-Knowing, All-Powerful, Almighty, and All-Wise likens Him to His creation and does not affirm His oneness.” The most extreme among these extremists went further still, saying: “He cannot be described through either negation or affirmation, because both entail likening Him to something else.”

All of them fell into a form of likening far worse than what they sought to escape: they likened Him to impossible things, nonexistent things, and inanimate objects, seeking to avoid what they claimed was likening Him to living beings. Yet it is well known that these attributes, which are affirmed for Allah, do not belong to Him in the same manner as they belong to any created being whatsoever. He—glorified and exalted is He—has nothing like Him in His essence, His attributes, or His actions. Thus, there is no difference between affirming His essence and affirming His attributes. If affirming His essence does not entail affirming its likeness to other essences, then affirming His attributes does not entail affirming any likeness to Him in those attributes. These Jahmiyya, who deny the divine attributes, therefore call this the affirmation of Allah’s oneness, describe its opposite as likening Him to His creation, and call themselves those who affirm His oneness.

The same applies to the “third type,” namely their statement: “He is one, with no division in His essence,” or “He has no part,” or “He has no portion.” This wording is ambiguous. For Allah—glorified is He—is “One, the Eternal Refuge. He neither begets nor is born, and there is none equal to Him.” It is therefore impossible for Him to be divided, to be broken into parts, or to have been composed of parts. Yet they include within this wording the denial that He is above His Throne, separate from His creation, and distinct from them, along with other such meanings that entail negating Him and denying His attributes. They count this as part of affirming His oneness.