among them were Hisham ibn Salim al-Jawaliqi and Dawud al-Jawaribi.
Allah has declared in His Book that He bears no resemblance whatsoever to His creation and has forbidden people to draw likenesses for Him: “There is nothing like unto Him”¹; “Do you know of any who is worthy of the same name?”²; “Nor is there any comparable to Him.”³; and “So do not coin similitudes for Allah.”⁴
Hence, whoever likens Allah’s attributes to the attributes of created beings is not truly worshipping Allah; he merely worships an idol that his own imagination has fashioned and his mind has carved. Such a person is an idol-worshipper, not a worshipper of the Most Merciful.
The scholar Ibn al-Qayyim said:
“We do not equate His attributes with ours;
whoever does so is but an idol-worshipper.”
Whoever likens Allah to created beings resembles the Christians who worship Jesus son of Mary, peace be upon him. Ibn al-Qayyim also said:
“Whoever likens the Almighty to His creation
is a close kin of the Christian polytheist.”
Nuʿaym ibn Ḥammād, the teacher of al-Bukhari—may Allah have mercy on them both—said: “Whoever likens Allah to His creation has disbelieved, and whoever denies what Allah or His Messenger has affirmed for Him has likewise disbelieved. Nothing that Allah has affirmed for Himself, nor what His Messenger has affirmed for Him, involves anthropomorphism.”
2. The Negators
These people deny the attributes of perfection that Allah has affirmed for Himself or that His Messenger has affirmed for Him, claiming that affirming them would entail likening Allah to bodily forms; thus they stand at the opposite extreme from the anthropomorphists. The doctrine of negation was borrowed from the pupils of the Jews, the polytheists, and the misguided Sabians.

¹ Qurʾan 42:11. ² 19:65. ³ 112:4. ⁴ 16:74.