So glory be to Him, the Mighty, to Him belong the Most Beautiful Names, and the highest description in the Hereafter and the first.
{To Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth and whatever is between them and whatever is under the soil} [Ṭāhā: 6].
I praise Him for the subtleties of His blessings which cannot be counted, and I thank Him for the regularities of His apportionments which cannot be limited or exhausted.
And I bear witness that there is no deity worthy of worship except God alone, with no partner, a testimony of lofty peaks,
and other innovated terms with which the deniers vilify the people of the Sunna, they only utter them intending thereby to deny the reality of the attributes of God, Mighty and Majestic, and more than one of the Imams has condemned them. ʿAbdullāh b. Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, may Allah have mercy on him, said: "My father and I were passing through the mosque, and he heard a storyteller narrating the hadith of the descent, saying: 'When it is the night of the middle of Shaʿbān, God, Mighty and Majestic, descends to the lowest heaven, without displacement, nor relocation, nor change of state.' My father, may Allah have mercy on him, trembled, his color turned pale, and he grabbed my hand. I held him until he calmed down, then he said: 'Stand with us by this meddler.' When he was adjacent to him, he said: 'O you, the Messenger of God, peace and blessings of God be upon him, is more protective of his Lord, Mighty and Majestic, than you. Say as the Messenger of God, peace and blessings of God be upon him, said,' and he left." [Al-Iqtiṣād fī al-Iʿtiqād by ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Maqdisī (21)]. Al-Dārimī, may Allah have mercy on him, said in Al-Naqḍ (p. 310): "This which you repeat time after time: 'limb', 'organ', and the like; is padding, fables, and vilification that no one in the worlds says." And he said (148): "As for your vilification of those who affirm the attributes of God, Mighty and Majestic, who believe in what God said, [claiming] that they imagine limbs and organs in them, you have claimed that against them falsely and baselessly. You are among the most knowledgeable of people regarding what they intend by them. They only affirm of them what you deny and belie, and they do not imagine in them except what God and His Messenger, peace and blessings of God be upon him, meant. They do not claim limbs or organs as you have fabricated against them, except that you spare no effort in vilifying them with lies, so that it may be more marketable for your misguidance among the ignorant." End quote. See the introduction, the seventh section (Affirming Place for God Almighty), for it contains further clarification.
