What is your guidance regarding the disagreement among the Salaf of the people of the Sunnah and the community on some issues of the attributes?
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The questioner : In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and may blessings and peace be upon the Messenger of Allah.
As for what follows: He saysThe questioner : Your Excellency, the Shaykh, you claim that the creed is a matter upon which the Salaf have reached consensus, and yet we find disagreement among them regarding the affirmation of the eye or the two eyes?
The Shaykh : What are you saying first?
The questioner : You claim.
The Shaykh : You claim, yes, if only he would soften it a little.
The questioner : That the creed is a matter upon which there is consensus, and yet we find disagreement among them regarding the affirmation of the eye or the two eyes and the leg. It is narrated from Ibn Abbas (may Allah be pleased with him) that he interpreted the saying of Allah the Exalted:[Al-Qalam 68:42] as intensity and distress. Here is a contradiction of the principle. Likewise, regarding the Prophet’s (peace and blessings be upon him) seeing his Lord (Exalted and Majestic is He): whoever affirms it must believe in that, and whoever denies it must believe in the meaning of the denial. What is our position? May Allah reward you with good.
The Shaykh : The question should have been posed without this preparation, because I do not think the questioner conveyed my opinion and based his guidance for this question on it. That is because what we profess to Allah is that there is no difference between what is called principles and what is called branches.
All of them, every one of them, should be in agreement and on one word if that is possible for them. However, that may not be possible in the principles, let alone the branches. In that case, the matter returns to the mujtahid (scholar qualified to derive rulings). If he intended the truth and attained it, he has two rewards; if he erred, he has one reward. There is no difference in that, as we said, between principles and branches.
As for claiming agreement on all principles, unlike the branches, I do not believe that a scholar would be certain of that. All that is in the matter is that we say:
That the Salaf agreed that the principle regarding the attributes of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) that came in the Book or in the Sunnah is that they are to be passed over as they came and not subjected to figurative interpretation. This is what can be said to be a matter of consensus, or in the expression ofThe questioner : It is a matter we claim and assert with certainty. However, this does not negate that some disagreement may occur in some issues related to this methodology.
The example mentioned by the questioner regarding the interpretation of the leg is correct; disagreement did occur in it. But is there disagreement among those who may differ on some details related to the creed or to the oneness of Allah? Is there disagreement among them regarding the principle, the rule? The answer is: No. And this is the difference between the followers of the Salaf and the Khalaf (the later generations). The rule of the Salaf is: "To believe in everything that came from Allah and His Messenger without figurative interpretation and without denial of the divine attributes". As for the Khalaf, the rule with them is: figurative interpretation, and it is not submission. A group was found between these and those, and they are called the "Mufawwidah": they do not believe as Muslims in the apparent meanings of the evidence from the Book and the Sunnah related to the attributes, along with the transcendence of Allah, nor do they interpret them as the Khalaf do, of whom we said recently that they say: "The school of the Salaf is safer, and the school of the Khalaf is more knowledgeable and more wise". So the disagreement is not in the details; that cannot be avoided. Rather, the principle in the rule: what is the rule of the Salaf?
It is belief in everything that came from Allah and His Messenger, believing in the apparent meanings that differ linguistically from the texts, along with the transcendence of Allah, as in the saying of Allah the Exalted, and this is a proof often used, and it is the saying of the Mighty and Majestic:[Ash-Shuraa 42:11]: So our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) preceded this phrase and said: [Ash-Shuraa 42:11] as transcendence, so that this transcendence is followed by affirmation, which is the saying of the Mighty and Majestic: [Ash-Shuraa 42:11].
So now, if we want to follow the path of the Salaf, they do not differ at all in understanding the All-Hearing and the All-Seeing, because they believe that the attribute of hearing is not the attribute of seeing, and that each of these two attributes, like the other divine attributes, is affirmed as it came, distinguishing between one attribute and another, and purifying Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) from resembling any of His creations.
What is the position of the Mu'tazilah who deny the divine attributes?
They say, or they take the first part of the verse:[Ash-Shuraa 42:11] transcendence, but they exaggerated in the transcendence and denied the attributes, saying: [Ash-Shuraa 42:11] meaning: the All-Knowing. They denied these two attributes because the human being is hearing and seeing, so they thought that they escaped, or they thought that by their escape from affirming these two attributes, they were with transcendence without denial. They did not notice that what they fled from, in their claim, they fell into the same, because when they interpret hearing and seeing as knowledge, people also have a knowledgeable and an ignorant among them, and Allah (Mighty and Majestic) says: [Az-Zumar 39:9]. So there is, as Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him) says: "A verbal sharing, not a real sharing in meaning". So the attribute of hearing, the attribute of seeing, and the attribute of knowledge; these three attributes our Lord (Blessed and Exalted is He) possesses, like the others that came in the Qur'an. But the fact that the human being is also described as hearing and described as seeing, and it may be said of him: All-Knowing, does not mean that his hearing and seeing and knowledge are like the hearing, seeing, and knowledge of Allah. Therefore, when the Mu'tazilah fled with this interpretation of hearing and seeing as knowledge, it is said to them: They denied two real attributes of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He).
As for what follows: He saysThe questioner : Your Excellency, the Shaykh, you claim that the creed is a matter upon which the Salaf have reached consensus, and yet we find disagreement among them regarding the affirmation of the eye or the two eyes?
The Shaykh : What are you saying first?
The questioner : You claim.
The Shaykh : You claim, yes, if only he would soften it a little.
The questioner : That the creed is a matter upon which there is consensus, and yet we find disagreement among them regarding the affirmation of the eye or the two eyes and the leg. It is narrated from Ibn Abbas (may Allah be pleased with him) that he interpreted the saying of Allah the Exalted:
The Day the shin will be uncovered
يوم يكشف عن ساقThe Shaykh : The question should have been posed without this preparation, because I do not think the questioner conveyed my opinion and based his guidance for this question on it. That is because what we profess to Allah is that there is no difference between what is called principles and what is called branches.
All of them, every one of them, should be in agreement and on one word if that is possible for them. However, that may not be possible in the principles, let alone the branches. In that case, the matter returns to the mujtahid (scholar qualified to derive rulings). If he intended the truth and attained it, he has two rewards; if he erred, he has one reward. There is no difference in that, as we said, between principles and branches.
As for claiming agreement on all principles, unlike the branches, I do not believe that a scholar would be certain of that. All that is in the matter is that we say:
That the Salaf agreed that the principle regarding the attributes of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) that came in the Book or in the Sunnah is that they are to be passed over as they came and not subjected to figurative interpretation. This is what can be said to be a matter of consensus, or in the expression ofThe questioner : It is a matter we claim and assert with certainty. However, this does not negate that some disagreement may occur in some issues related to this methodology.
The example mentioned by the questioner regarding the interpretation of the leg is correct; disagreement did occur in it. But is there disagreement among those who may differ on some details related to the creed or to the oneness of Allah? Is there disagreement among them regarding the principle, the rule? The answer is: No. And this is the difference between the followers of the Salaf and the Khalaf (the later generations). The rule of the Salaf is: "To believe in everything that came from Allah and His Messenger without figurative interpretation and without denial of the divine attributes". As for the Khalaf, the rule with them is: figurative interpretation, and it is not submission. A group was found between these and those, and they are called the "Mufawwidah": they do not believe as Muslims in the apparent meanings of the evidence from the Book and the Sunnah related to the attributes, along with the transcendence of Allah, nor do they interpret them as the Khalaf do, of whom we said recently that they say: "The school of the Salaf is safer, and the school of the Khalaf is more knowledgeable and more wise". So the disagreement is not in the details; that cannot be avoided. Rather, the principle in the rule: what is the rule of the Salaf?
It is belief in everything that came from Allah and His Messenger, believing in the apparent meanings that differ linguistically from the texts, along with the transcendence of Allah, as in the saying of Allah the Exalted, and this is a proof often used, and it is the saying of the Mighty and Majestic:
There is nothing like unto Him, and He is the Hearing, the Seeing.
ليس كمثله شيء وهو السميع البصيرThere is nothing like unto Him
ليس كمثله شيءand He is the Hearing, the Seeing.
وهو السميع البصيرSo now, if we want to follow the path of the Salaf, they do not differ at all in understanding the All-Hearing and the All-Seeing, because they believe that the attribute of hearing is not the attribute of seeing, and that each of these two attributes, like the other divine attributes, is affirmed as it came, distinguishing between one attribute and another, and purifying Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) from resembling any of His creations.
What is the position of the Mu'tazilah who deny the divine attributes?
They say, or they take the first part of the verse: