—“Rather, both His hands are outstretched; He bestows as He wills.”
—“And the Face of your Lord will remain, full of majesty and honor.”
—Those “who seek His Face.”
—And to Moses: “so that you might be reared under My eye.”
—and so on.

To anyone who claims that such passages are “ambiguous and their meaning is unknown,” it is said: Do you say this about every name and attribute by which Allah has named and described Himself, or only about some of them?

If you reply, “About all of them,” this is manifest obstinacy and a denial of what is necessarily known in the religion of Islam; indeed, it is outright disbelief.

For we understand from His statement, “Indeed Allah is Knowing of all things,” a particular meaning; and from His statement, “Indeed Allah is Powerful over all things,” a meaning different from the first; and from His statement, “My mercy encompasses all things,” yet another meaning; and from His statement, “Allah is Mighty, Lord of Retribution,” still another meaning. Even Muslim children—indeed every rational person—grasp this.

I have seen some innovators and deniers among the people of the Maghrib—men who claim affiliation with hadith yet have been influenced by corrupt philosophy—who say: “We call Allah the Most Compassionate, the All-Knowing, the All-Powerful merely as empty designations, without understanding from them any meaning whatsoever. Likewise, concerning His words, ‘and they encompass not a thing of His knowledge,’ we utter the phrase without affirming that He possesses knowledge.”

This extremism with respect to the outward wording is of the same type as the inward extremism of the Qarmatians, though the former is drier while the latter is more unbelieving.

Next, this obstinate person is asked: Do these names indicate the deity who is to be worshipped, a real existent, or not?

If he answers, “No,” then he is a pure nullifier, and I know of no Muslim who says—