Is al-Muntaqim (The Avenger) one of the names of Allah or one of His attributes?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question : O Shaykh, is al-Mantiq (The Speaker) an attribute or a description?
Answer : Al-Muntaqim is an attribute, but it is not an absolute attribute; it is a conditional attribute of action. Therefore, it is not permissible to apply the name al-Muntaqim or the description al-Muntaqim to Allah without qualification, because Allah qualified it when He said:[As-Sajdah 32:22] and He said: [Az-Zukhruf 43:41], so it is qualified. However, saying "Dhu Intiqam" (The One Who Has Vengeance) is correct, meaning the One Who Possesses Vengeance, but this does not convey the general description that the description al-Muntaqim conveys. For this reason, it is correct to say that Allah is Dhu Intiqam in an absolute sense, but it is not correct to say that Allah is al-Muntaqim or al-Muntaqim in an absolute sense; rather, it must be qualified.
Answer : Al-Muntaqim is an attribute, but it is not an absolute attribute; it is a conditional attribute of action. Therefore, it is not permissible to apply the name al-Muntaqim or the description al-Muntaqim to Allah without qualification, because Allah qualified it when He said:
Indeed We, from the criminals, will take retribution.
إِنَّا مِنَ الْمُجْرِمِينَ مُنتَقِمُونَAnd whether [or not] We take you away [in death], indeed, We will take retribution upon them.
فَإِمَّا نَذْهَبَنَّ بِكَ فَإِنَّا مِنْهُم مُّنتَقِمُونَ
Source
قناة «فضيلة الشيخ محمد بن صالح العثيمين»، 3272 - 4600 هل المنتقم أسم من أسماء الله أو صفته؟ ابن عثيمين — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.