…human beings; then how can it be claimed that He is inside all of humankind? The same applies to what was mentioned about the bellies of swine, latrines and other filthy places: elementary, innate reason makes it self-evident that the Lord must be declared far above being inside, adjacent to, or in physical contact with such impurity. The deliberate mention of these repulsive bodies and cavities follows the Qur’anic method of employing concrete examples and analogies when discussing the attributes of God. Imam Ahmad and the other leading scholars follow the very course laid down by the Qur’an and the sunnah—namely, a sound rational methodology. In this field they invoke the “analogy of greater right” (qiyas al-awla): every praiseworthy quality that must be affirmed for creatures is, a fortiori, even more fitting for the Creator, while every defect or blameworthy trait that creatures must repudiate is even more emphatically negated of the Lord. The Qur’an itself argues this way, as in: “He has coined for you a parable drawn from your own selves” (al-Rum 30:28) and “When one of them is given the glad tidings of what he ascribes to the All-Merciful…” (al-Zukhruf 43:17). It invalidates their belief in a partner or offspring for God by reminding them that they themselves would never accept such a deficient description; if they refuse it for themselves, how can they ascribe it to their Lord? Indeed, “Those who do not believe in the Hereafter have the worst comparison, whereas to God belongs the highest comparison” (al-Nahl 16:60). A similar maxim is found in the Prophet’s statement, “We do not accept for ourselves the evil comparison,” and for that reason God sometimes likens those He condemns to a donkey and at other times to a dog. He then said (2/537): Thus Imam Ahmad, while relying on the textual evidence and the consensus, also argues from innate disposition (fitra) and from sound rational analogies grounded in the principle of greater right. Impurities are among the things the Lawgiver has ordered to be avoided and declared that punishment awaits those who do not. The Prophet said in a sound hadith: “Keep away from urine, for most of the torment of the grave stems from it.” This is universally known in Islam, and hearts are naturally averse to filth, inclined to shun it because it is vile. Now, if the created servant—marked, as God wills, by limitations from which the Lord must be declared free—may not remain where impurities are found nor touch them without necessity, and if, even when necessity requires it, he must afterwards cleanse himself, and if, when he stands to pray, he is obliged to purify himself first, then when the Lord has required His servant, in the very act of addressing Him, to purify himself and keep away from …