their divergence from the Salaf in their interpretation of the verse of istiwāʾ and of other passages and hadiths concerning the divine attributes.
Some readers may wonder why this occurred. I say: it is nothing but their turning away from the path of the early generations, followed by their mistaken conception of the exaltedness mentioned in the noble verses as the kind of exaltedness that befits a created being. Because such an idea flatly contradicts the unanimously required transcendence of Allah, they fled from it to their previous interpretation, imagining that in so doing they had avoided attributing to Allah what does not befit Him.
For a time, a group of leading scholars held this very interpretation. Among them was Imām Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, as will be shown in his biography ⦗120⦘, and the distinguished scholar Abū Muḥammad al-Juwaynī al-Shāfiʿī—the father of Imām al-Ḥaramayn—who died in 438 AH. Allah later guided him to adopt the understanding of the Salaf regarding istiwāʾ and the rest of the attributes, after which he composed a beneficial treatise¹ that he presented as sincere counsel to his brethren in Allah, as he stated in its introduction. In that work he gives a precise description of the perplexity and vacillation he experienced during one stage of his scholarly life, torn between following the Salaf and following the theologians of his age who interpreted istiwāʾ as “dominion.” He said, may Allah have mercy on him, ⦗176-177⦘:
“Know that for a considerable period I was bewildered about three issues:
- The question of the attributes;
- The question of loftiness (fawqiyyah);
- The question of the letter and the sound in the Glorious Quran.
I was inclined to the various opinions that appear in the books of the scholars of my time concerning all…"