the sky?”
He replied, “Yes.”
Ibn Abbās asked, “Do you see all of it?”
He replied, “No.” (1) Thus, he explained that Allah is seen but is not fully perceived—that is, He is not encompassed—and similar matters.
This distinction falls into two categories. One is a distinction in our knowledge as knowers: we may know one thing but not another. No rational person who understands this can dispute it either. Even if a dispute over it were assumed, a person may know that he exists before knowing that he possesses knowledge, and may know that he has power before knowing that he is (willing), and so forth. (2) Every person knows one thing while not knowing another. Thus, no rational person can dispute the distinction in people’s knowledge between what is known and what is not known, unless the dispute is merely verbal or a person speaks without grasping the true import of his own words.
This aspect of distinction is unanimously affirmed, just as the former is unanimously denied. As for distinction in reality without admitting of partition or separation—such as the distinction of knowledge from power, the essence from an attribute, hearing from sight, and what is seen of Him from what is not seen, and similar matters, as well as the affirmation that He has attributes and that they are diverse—this is denied by the Jahmiyyah, the negators of the attributes. The early generations and the imams denounced their denial of it, as was stated by the Muslim imams who wrote in refutation of the Jahmiyyah, such as Imam Ahmad, may Allah be pleased with him, in his refutation of the Jahmiyyah (3), and other Muslim imams. But (there is no) (4) one among the Muslim imams who said that