the attribute of knowledge, as some of the Muʿtazilah claim—though many of them, as we have already reported, deny every essential attribute of Allah altogether?

Indeed, that alone should suffice you. If not, then what difference is there between our accepting, in accordance with the early generations, these attributes in their apparent sense while affirming that their true reality is known only to the One described by them (exalted be He), and your denial of istiwāʾ, for instance, while—so I assume—you accept our literal explanation of the rest of the attributes, such as His being living, all-powerful, willing, wise, and the like, likewise without figurative interpretation, together with the conviction that their real nature is known only to Allah?

What I hold and state with absolute certainty is that every rational, knowledgeable person must concede that there is no difference whatsoever between the two positions, for all of them pertain to the essential attributes of Allah Most High. Just as we believe in His Essence without knowing its quiddity or reality, so too must we believe in His attributes—there is no distinction. If that is the case, then the Shaykh must either accept with us the realities of all the attributes, including istiwāʾ as we have explained it, or else allegorically interpret them all. By doing the latter he would be driven to deny the very existence of Allah, since he does not know His reality; and whatever he does not know—such as istiwāʾ—he explains away! This is precisely the pit into which the esotericists fell, as did many philosophers; the Muʿtazilah drew close to it, and so did a number of scholastic theologians influenced by them, as Shaykh al-Islam—may Allah have mercy on him—has detailed at length in his many works; may Allah reward him well on behalf of Islam.

On this occasion I find it fitting to reproduce, from certain manuscripts, a splendid passage by one of the scholars of the early generations that, to the best of my knowledge, has yet to be printed. It is by the famed ḥāfiẓ and historian al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī. The author of our present book has quoted a portion of it in his biographical notice below, and I deemed it appropriate to cite it here verbatim, so as to complete the argument against those later scholars—many of whom imagine that affirming the realities and meanings of the divine attributes, in a manner befitting Allah Most High, is a doctrine unique to Ibn Taymiyyah and those who adopt his approach. They are unaware that he, may Allah sanctify his soul, merely followed them in this matter; his distinction lay in the clarity with which he expounded it, the proofs he marshalled for it from transmitted and rational evidence alike, and his refutation of the doubts raised against it. Otherwise, his creed was that of the salaf, which is obligatory upon every Muslim, and for that reason