The ruling on one who denies an attribute of Allah the Exalted

Question:
May Allah reward you, Your Eminence, father. The questioner says: al-Hajjawi, the author of *Zad al-Mustaqni*, mentioned in the chapter on the apostate that one who denies an attribute of Allah the Exalted is a disbeliever. Are the Asha'irah disbelievers?

Answer:
If they deny them out of knowledge, out of knowledge and belief, and they know that they are the attributes of Allah, and they are not followers of taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence) nor ignorant, then they are declared disbelievers. This applies to their scholars who know the establishment of the attributes, know their meaning, and have not followed anyone, but rather they denied this deliberately; these are the ones who are declared disbelievers. As for the one who follows taqlid and the ignorant one, he is declared to be on error but not a disbeliever, and most of them are like that; most of them are followers of taqlid.