and the exegetes, the philologists, and many others. You will meet them by name, together with the reliably transmitted statements that have reached us from each of them on this question, until their number nearly reaches two hundred. In fact, they run into the several hundreds, but this is all that the author—may Allah have mercy on him—was able to gather.1
When the student who earnestly seeks the truth pauses to read their words, he will realize that it is inconceivable for them all to have agreed upon error; rather, he will know that the one who contradicts them is the one who is astray. How excellent is what the author, may Allah have mercy on him, said in his book “The Attributes of the Lord of the Worlds” after citing a small portion of the texts we have hinted at ⦗187/1-2⦘:
“If we were to quote the statement of every imam who spoke about affirming the divine attributes, the pages would not suffice. Should an opponent refuse to be guided by those we have mentioned—those who say that the consensus is to affirm the attributes without figurative interpretation—or should he doubt the accuracy of what we have reported from them, then may Allah not guide him. By Allah, there is no good in anyone who rejects the likes of al-Zuhri, Makḥūl, al-Awzāʿī, al-Thawrī, al-Layth ibn Saʿd, Mālik, Ibn ʿUyayna, Ibn al-Mubārak, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, al-Shāfiʿī, al-Ḥumaydī, Abū ʿUbayd, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, Abū ʿĪsā al-Tirmidhī, Ibn Surayj, Ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī, Ibn Khuzayma, Zakariyyā al-Sājī, Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, or those who stated the same consensus, such as al-Khaṭṭābī, Abū Bakr al-Ismāʿīlī, Abū al-Qāsim al-Ṭabarānī, Abū Aḥmad al-ʿAssāl… [he then mentioned others that will come later], and Shaykh ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlī—the imam of every age—those who are the very kernel and its purest substance.”
I say: sound, innate reason bears witness to these imams and to the texts of the Book and the Sunnah that they carry. The matter is as follows:
There is no difference among all Muslims that Allah existed while nothing else existed with Him—no Throne, no Footstool, no heaven, and no earth. Thereafter Allah created the creation, as will be mentioned in the hadith of ʿImrān ibn Ḥuṣayn.