except by referring them back to the unequivocal ones, and it is obligatory to affirm them all and believe in every single one of them. The same standard applies to the Prophet’s reports—Allah bless him and grant him peace—for they follow this very course: whatever among them is ambiguous is referred to what is plain, and all of them are accepted.
The hadiths transmitted about the divine attributes fall into three categories:
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Established reports whose authenticity is unanimously upheld by the leading scholars of transmission because they are widespread and their narrators are upright. These must be accepted and believed, while the heart is guarded against letting any notion creep in that would liken Allah to His creation or ascribe to Him what does not befit Him—such as bodily parts, instruments, change, or movement.
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Reports that are unsound, with feeble chains and repugnant wording—reports that the experts in transmission have unanimously declared spurious. It is impermissible to busy oneself with them or even pay them any attention.
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Reports about whose transmitters the scholars have differed, some accepting them while others do not. These require diligent examination and scholarly effort so that they may either be admitted among the accepted or consigned to the realm of falsity and rejection.
I say: Memorise this foundational principle concerning the attributes and grasp it well, for it is the key to guidance and steadfastness upon it. This very rule was the basis on which Imām al-Juwaynī relied after Allah guided him to the way of the early generations in the matter of the divine rising over (istiwāʾ) and other issues, as noted earlier; and it is the mainstay of all the careful investigators in their treatment of this subject, such as Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn al-Qayyim, and others. Ibn Taymiyyah said in al-Tadmuriyyah (p. 29, Islamic Office edition):
“Speech about the attributes is like speech about the Essence, for ‘There is nothing like unto Him’—neither in His Essence, nor in His attributes, nor in His actions. Just as He possesses a true Essence that resembles no other essences, that Essence is described by real attributes that resemble no other attributes.
So if someone asks, ‘How did He rise over the Throne?’ he is answered just as Rabiʿah and Mālik said…”