the shaykh and quoted only the end of his statement, to give the reader the impression that the shaykh was citing body and substance as examples of Allah’s established attributes. Thus, after this truncated quotation, the falsifier said: “Following Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn al-Qayyim, he therefore considers corporeality and spatial location to be among the attributes of Allah, the Exalted.”
Yet, as noted above, immediately after the passage cited by the writer, Shaykh al-Duwaysh—may Allah have mercy on him—quoted Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah—may Allah have mercy on him—as saying that these terms must not be affirmed or denied of Allah without qualification. This is the position of Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah and the other imams of Ahl al-Sunnah concerning such misleading expressions: they endorse neither their unqualified affirmation nor their unqualified denial, since they have not been transmitted in revelation and can bear different meanings.
Despite being aware of this, the writer would settle for nothing but lies and falsification.
19 The writer said on p. 33: “… That is why Allah, the Exalted, says:
‘And if you asked them, “Who created the heavens and the earth and subjected the sun and the moon?” they would surely say, “Allah.” Then how are they deluded?’ 1
Its meaning, as al-Qurtubī said in his commentary (13/161), is: ‘That is, how can they disbelieve in My oneness and turn away from worshipping Me? This means that they say this merely with their tongues when confronted with proofs, while in reality they do not hold this belief.’ …”
I say: When the writer could find no scholar who agreed with his claim that the polytheists do not believe in Allah’s existence, and that they said this only when confronted with proofs, while in reality they do not hold this belief—when he could find no one who agreed with him on this, he was forced to resort to falsification.
He thus wrote: As al-Qurtubī said in his commentary (13/161): “That is, how can they disbelieve in My oneness and turn away from worshipping Me? This means that they say this merely with their tongues when