Approaching the Divine Attributes

Question: How should a Muslim approach the texts concerning Allah's names and attributes?

Answer:

The Qur'an and Sunnah contain many texts describing Allah through His beautiful names and exalted attributes. Because these texts speak about the Creator rather than the creation, they cannot be approached by the same methods used to understand created things. For this reason, the traditional Hanbali scholars laid down clear principles governing how these texts are to be understood.

Imam Ibn Ḥamdān summarizes these principles as follows:

"He is not known through the senses, nor is He measured by comparison to people. Analogy has no place with respect to His Essence or His Attributes… Nothing resembles Him, nor does He resemble anything. Whoever likens Him to His creation has committed disbelief, as Imam Aḥmad explicitly stated. Likewise, whoever describes Him as a body, or says, 'He is a body, but not like bodies.'" (Nihāyat al-Mubtadiʾīn, p. 39)

Because Allah is utterly unlike His creation, the human mind cannot encompass His reality:

"Imaginations cannot reach Him, intellects cannot comprehend Him, mankind bears no resemblance to Him, no parables are struck for Him, and He is not known through mere discourse or speculation. Whatever occurs to the mind or is imagined by the fancy, Allah, the Possessor of Majesty and Perfection, is altogether unlike it." (Nihāyat al-Mubtadiʾīn, p. 39)

For this reason, the Hanbali approach to the revealed attributes of Allah is neither to reinterpret them away nor to imagine their reality. Ibn Ḥamdān writes:

"We do not reinterpret them (taʾwīl), explain them (tafsīr), attribute modality to them (takyīf), imagine them (tawahhum), define them (taʿyīn), negate them (taʿṭīl), or reject them (takdhīb). Rather, we consign their true knowledge to Allah the Exalted while maintaining absolute certainty that He is free of all resemblance (tashbīh), corporeality (tajsīm), and every imperfection. The same ruling applies to all of the explicit Qur'anic verses and authentic reports concerning the divine attributes." (Nihāyat al-Mubtadiʾīn, p. 40)

Thus, the traditional Hanbali method affirms everything that Allah and His Messenger ﷺ affirmed regarding Him while categorically denying any likeness between Allah and His creation. The servant neither likens Allah to creation (tashbīh), nor describes Him as a body (tajsīm), nor attributes modality to His attributes (takyīf). Whatever occurs to the mind or is imagined by the fancy belongs to the realm of creation, whereas Allah is exalted beyond every image, comparison, and limitation. Instead, one affirms the revealed texts as they have come, consigns their true knowledge to Allah, and maintains absolute certainty that He is utterly unlike His creation and perfect in every respect.

And Allah knows best.