Himself—He disclosed it to whomever He willed among His angels or others, yet did not reveal it in His Book; a category He did reveal in His Book and by which He made Himself known to His servants; and a category He reserved exclusively in the knowledge of the unseen with Him, to which He allowed none of His creation access.
As for the Almighty’s words, “Leave those who deviate with respect to His Names,” this means: turn away from them and abandon them, for Allah will Himself take charge of their recompense. Hence He said, “They shall be repaid for what they used to do.”
The phrase “who deviate with respect to His Names” indicates that they swerve with those Names—along with their realities and meanings—away from the truth that properly belongs to them. Deviance concerning the Divine Names takes several forms:
-
Assigning those Names to idols, as when they derived al-Lāt from al-Ilāh (God), al-‘Uzzā from al-‘Azīz (the Almighty), or simply called an idol “a god.”
-
Naming Him with terms unbefitting His Majesty, such as the Christians who call Him “Father,” or the philosophers who label Him mūjib bi-dhātihi (the self-necessitating being) or “the natural efficient cause.”
-
Describing Him with defects from which He is supremely exalted, like the vilest of the Jews who said, “He is poor,” or “He rested on Saturday,” and their claim, “The hand of Allah is chained.”
-
Stripping the Most Beautiful Names of their meanings and denying the realities they contain, as the Jahmites and their followers do when they claim those Names are mere words devoid of attributes or meanings. They will say, for example, that He is “the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing,” yet insist that He possesses neither hearing nor sight. This is among the gravest forms of deviance, both rationally and legally, and it is the mirror opposite of the polytheists’ deviation: the polytheists assigned portions of His Names and attributes to their deities, while these people divest Him of His perfection, negating His Names and attributes altogether.
What is obligatory is to affirm His Names and to believe in what they indicate of His perfect attributes and majestic qualities—without distortion or denial, and without inquiring into how or drawing any likeness—just as He says