than this? And what audacity against Allah could surpass such audacity!
It also follows that they would have to be more knowledgeable about Allah than the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), for the Messenger affirmed these attributes for Allah while they denied them and declared that such attributes do not befit Him. What misguidance could be worse than this—if only they would reason! How can these ignorant, misguided people be more knowledgeable about Allah than He is about Himself? Exalted is Allah above what they allege. Allah the Exalted says: “He knows what is before them and what is behind them, yet they encompass Him not in knowledge” ⦗1⦘. And no one in creation is more knowledgeable about Allah, what He deserves, and what befits Him than the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him).
What drove the Jahmiyyah and those who follow them to deny Allah’s attributes was their ignorance of Allah and their faulty understanding. They imagined that affirming the very attributes Allah affirmed for Himself—and that His Messenger affirmed for Him—necessarily entails resemblance, because they see these attributes in created beings and fail to distinguish between the attributes of the Creator and those of the creature. They understood nothing of the Creator’s qualities except what they understood of the creature’s qualities, and they did not realize that the Creator’s attributes belong to Him alone, while the creatures’ attributes belong to them and befit them. There is no similarity between the attributes of the Creator and those of the creature, just as there is no similarity between the Essence of the Creator and the essences of created beings. Allah the Exalted has said: “There is nothing like unto Him, and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing” ⦗2⦘. Thus He affirmed for Himself hearing and sight while negating any likeness to other things, proving that affirming the attributes does not necessitate any resemblance between Creator and creature.
This is the very principle upon which Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamaʿah proceed in affirming Allah’s names and attributes: they affirm for Him whatever He affirmed for Himself, without likening, and they declare Him free of whatever He negated for Himself, without nullifying.
As for the Jahmiyyah and their disciples among the Muʿtazilah and the Ashʿarites, they built their doctrine upon a false foundation of their own making: that affirming these attributes necessarily entails