and hadiths that have been transmitted concerning the attributes of God Almighty.
And that is the position of all the scholars of the Muslims and their Imams, without any disagreement among them (1).
Notes
- (1) This is a great principle regarding the attributes of God Almighty: that speech is to be taken upon its literal meaning according to the Arabs, in whose language God, Mighty and Majestic, addressed us. Speech is not to be diverted from its literal meaning to the figurative and otherwise except for a clear and evident reason. al-Dārimī (d. 280 AH) May Allah have mercy on him said in al-Naqḍ (p. 111): "It is not permissible to speak concerning the verses of the attributes, the hadiths affirming them, the negation of likeness from them, and having faith in them, except by what is known from the Arabic language based on the context of the speech and its concomitants, and God knows best." He also said (p. 419): "We have known, by the praise of God Almighty, from the dialects of the Arabs these figurative usages which you have taken as a deception and a trick upon the ignorant, using them to negate from God Almighty the literal meanings of the attributes through the pretexts of figurative usages. However, we say: the rarest of the speech of the Arabs is not given judgment over the most common; rather, we direct their meanings to the most common until you bring a proof that He intended by them the rarest. This is the school of thought that is closer to fairness and justice, not that the known attributes of God, accepted by the people of insight, are objected to and we divert their meanings by the pretext of figurative usages to what is more objectionable, and we reply to God Almighty with invalid arguments and that which is most crooked. Likewise, the apparent meaning of the Qur'an and all the wordings of the narrations have their meanings directed to the general, until an interpreter comes with a clear proof that the specific was intended by them; because God Almighty said: {in a clear Arabic tongue}. Thus, what is established with the scholars is its most general and most widespread usage among the Arabs. So whoever introduces the specific into the general among them is of those who follow what is ambiguous of it, seeking discord and seeking its interpretation, for he wants to follow in it other than the path of the believers." End quote. al-Sijzī (d. 444 AH) May Allah have mercy on him said in his Risāla ilā Ahl Zabīd (p. 152): "It is obligatory to know that if God Almighty describes Himself with an attribute that is intelligible to the Arabs, and the address came to them with it according to what they mutually recognize among themselves, and He, Glorified is He, did not clarify that it is contrary to what they understand, nor did the Prophet Peace and blessings of God be upon him explain it when he conveyed it with an explanation that contradicts the apparent meaning, then it remains upon what they understand and mutually recognize." End quote.
