46- The Ruling on Denying the Names and Attributes of Allah the Exalted
This denial is of two kinds:
① The first kind: denying any name or attribute established for Allah the Exalted is disbelief about which there is no room for doubt. For example, if a person denies the hand of Allah, he is a disbeliever by consensus, because denying a report given by Allah and His Messenger is disbelief.
② The second kind: he accepts the attribute but interprets it figuratively (ta’wil). This has two cases:
① The first case: if the Arabic language allows room for such an interpretation of the meaning, the one who does so is not called a disbeliever.
② The second case: if the Arabic language allows no room for interpretation in it, the one who does so is called a disbeliever, because doing so is denial (takdhib). For example, a man does not accept yad (hand) at all, neither in its real meaning nor in the meaning of favour, kindness and power; such a person is a disbeliever, because he has denied it completely. Likewise, if he takes the saying of Allah the Exalted:
بَلْ يَدَاهُ مَبْسُوطَتَانِ
“Rather, both His hands are outstretched.”
to mean the earth and the heavens, he is a disbeliever, because the Arabic language has no room for this, nor does the Shar’i reality permit it. So the one who does so is a disbeliever and a denier. But if he takes the word “yad” to mean favour and power, he is not a disbeliever, because in the Arabic language this word is used in the sense of favour and kindness, as in the saying of the poet:
وَعَمَّ لِظَلَامِ اللَّيْلِ عِنْدَكَ مِنْ يَدِ
تُحَدِّثُ أَنَّ الْمَانُوِيَةَ تَكْذِبُ
“You have countless favours over me from the dark nights, which tell that the Manichaeans (the sect) lie.”
Here “yad” means favour and kindness, because according to the Manichaeans (the sect) there is no good in darkness; it is evil through and through.
