You claim that the creed is a matter upon which the Salaf agreed, and yet we find disagreement among them regarding the affirmation of the eye or the two eyes and the leg.

The questioner : Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and may the prayers and peace be upon the Messenger of Allah. As for what follows:
He says:The questioner: His EminenceThe Shaykh : You claim that the creed is a matter upon which the Salaf agreed, and yet we find disagreement among them regarding the affirmation of the eye or the two eyes.

The Shaykh : What did you say first?

The questioner : You claim.

The Shaykh : You claim as well.

The questioner : As for the creed, it is a matter upon which consensus has been reached, and yet we find disagreement among them regarding the affirmation of the eye or the two eyes and the leg; for it was narrated from Ibn Abbas (may Allah be pleased with him and his father) that he interpreted the saying of Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He): as severity and distress, and here is a contradiction of the principle. Likewise, regarding the Prophet (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; so what is our position? May Allah reward you with good.

The Shaykh : The question should have been phrased differently; becauseThe questioner : I do not think he conveyed my opinion and based his direction of this question on it; for we are those who declare to Allah that there is no difference between what is called the fundamentals and what ... , all of it, every part of it, is that they should be in agreement and on one word if that is possible for them. But that may not be possible in the fundamentals, let alone the branches; so 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, and if he erred, he has one reward. There is no difference in that—as we said—between fundamentals and branches. As for claiming agreement in all the fundamentals, unlike the branches, I do not believe that a scholar would be certain of that. All that is the case is that we say: 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 to let them pass as they came without figurative interpretation. This is what can be said to be a matter of agreement, or in the expression ofThe questioner : it is a matter we claim and assert with certainty, but this does not negate that some disagreement may occur in some issues related to this methodology. The example mentioned byThe questioner : regarding the interpretation of the leg is correct; there was indeed disagreement in it. But is there disagreement among those who may differ in some details related to the creed or to the oneness of Allah? Is there disagreement between them in the original principle? The answer is: No. And this is the difference between the followers of the Salaf and the Khalaf (the later generations). The Salaf’s principle is this: 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, their principle is figurative interpretation, and it is not facilitation.
And a group was found between these two groups, and they are those called "the Mu'awwidah" (those who delegate the meaning to Allah). They do not believe in a submissive manner 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. We said about them recently that they say: The methodology of the Salaf is safer, and the methodology of the Khalaf is more knowledgeable and more wise. The disagreement is not in the details; that cannot be avoided. Rather, the principle is in the foundation. What is the principle of the Salaf? It is belief in everything that came from Allah and His Messenger, believing in the apparent meanings that differ linguistically in the texts, along with the transcendence of Allah, as in His saying (Glorified and Exalted is He). This is a proof used frequently; and it is His saying (Mighty and Majestic): . So our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) presented this phrase and said: as a transcendence; so that this transcendence is followed by the affirmation; which is His saying (Mighty and Majestic): .
Now, if we want to follow the way of the Salaf, they do not differ in understanding at all; 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; transcending 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 they take the first part of the verse , the transcendence; but they exaggerated in the transcendence so they denied the attributes and said: meaning: the All-Knowing. They denied these two attributes because the human being is hearing and seeing, so they thought they had escaped, and they thought that by their escape from affirming these two attributes, they were with the transcendence without the 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—among them are knowledgeable and ignorant. And Allah (Mighty and Majestic) says: . So there is, as Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him) says, a verbal sharing and 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 that he is knowledgeable; that 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 attributes and two realities of the attributes of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He).
We return now to those who delegate the meaning to Allah, so what do they say? They say: We believe in the verse as it came, but we do not know what the meaning of All-Knowing is, what the meaning of Hearing is, what the meaning of Seeing is. We delegate the matter to Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He). Some people think that this is the methodology of the Salaf. This is not the methodology of the Salaf. The methodology of the Salaf is the affirmation of the attribute along with the transcendence of Allah. The methodology of the Mu'awwidah does not affirm anything; they say: Allah knows best His intent! As for the transcendence, it is a matter shared by all the sects; whether the Salaf, the Mu'awwidah, the Mu'tazilah, the Asha'irah, or the Maturidiyyah. They all meet in the transcendence of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) and His not resembling ... , but they differ in their position toward all the attributes that came in the Book and the Sunnah, including this example that is before us now. So if the Salaf differ in a verse or in a hadith, that does not mean that they have departed from this principle. While the Khalaf who say: The knowledge of the Salaf is safer and the knowledge of the Khalaf is better and wiser, so the principle in the disagreement is in the foundation, and not in what necessitates the disagreement of each of the two groups in a part or an attribute of the attributes, like the verse of the leg. And therefore, no one should understand that the Salaf do not differ in anything of the verses of the attributes, but they are agreed upon in the principle. For example, the interpretation of al-Mu'ayyah (companionship); it may be narrated from Ibn Abbas (may Allah be pleased with him) what may contradict others who came after him, but they all return ultimately to the affirmation of the attributes as a principle, unlike the Mu'tazilah and unlike those who followed them in much of the deviation in which the Mu'tazilah deviated.
You heard earlier that the Mu'tazilah deny the attributes of hearing and sight, but the Asha'irah, for example, and the Maturidiyyah affirm them and do not interpret them figuratively, nor do they deny their meanings, as the Mu'tazilah did. However, these later generations (Khalaf) from the Asha'irah and Maturidiyyah, in the root of their school, is it faith in the meanings of the attributes with transcendence, or is the root interpretation (ta'wil)? These later ones from the Asha'irah and Mu'tazilah are between the methodology of the Salaf and the methodology of the Mu'tazilah. Sometimes you find them like the Mu'tazilah, such as in their position on the divine speech; where the Mu'tazilah explicitly state, without any ambiguity, that the speech of Allah is created, whereas the Asha'irah and Maturidiyyah say: The speech of Allah is not created. But if you investigate with them and scrutinize their position, you find that in the end they converge with the Mu'tazilah. While they say that the speech of Allah is an attribute of His, contrary to the Mu'tazilah, when a person scrutinizes their research with them, they say: The divine speech, which is an attribute of His, is not the speech that the Salaf believe in, and as He (peace be upon him) said in the authentic hadith: . They do not say that the speech of Allah is letters, words, and sound, as the Salaf say, but rather they converge with the Mu'tazilah in denying this reality. However, they differ from the Mu'tazilah in that they interpret the divine speech as what leads to knowledge. Therefore, when they refute the Mu'tazilah and say to them: Why do you say the speech of Allah is created? Does not our Lord (Blessed and Exalted is He) detail to Moses His speech (Blessed and Exalted is He)? And they say: Is not Allah able to make Moses hear His speech, which is what He said to him: ? They invoke this description regarding the divine speech taken from this explicit verse . They do not say, as the Mu'tazilah do, "Is not Allah able to make His speech and sound heard by Moses?" Rather, they say: "Is not Allah able to make His speech understood?" Thus, they reduced the attribute of speech to knowledge. It could also be said: Is not Allah (Mighty and Majestic) able to designate the tablets for Moses? For the Mu'tazilah, the tablets that Allah revealed to Moses (peace be upon him), and He described them by saying (the Exalted): , they explicitly say: It is not Allah who spoke, and it is not Allah who said: , but rather the tree spoke. So Allah does not speak and does not utter. The Maturidiyyah and Asha'irah converge with them in reality, but they call the divine speech established in the Qur'an "internal speech" (kalam nafsi), which does not come out, is not heard, is not read, and so on. This should be in our minds.
As for the Salaf, they differ from the other sects by their agreement on the principle, which is transcendence with affirmation. As for the others, their interpretation (ta'wil) is denial of the divine attributes (ta'til) with transcendence, so nothing stopped them; transcendence with interpretation, which is often accompanied by denial of the divine attributes (ta'til). How excellent is what Ibn al-Qayyim (may Allah have mercy on him) said—and perhaps he quoted it from his Shaykh Ibn Taymiyyah: "The one who denies the attributes worships non-existence, and the one who ascribes a body to Allah worships an idol." And this is a reality that no one can deny.
I want to step out for a moment.
And that the disagreement, as I said, in such a word or verse is limited among all Muslims to the branches, but it has extended to the principles, which are the rules related to creed. I mentioned that the Salaf and their followers, the Salafis, do not differ on the principle, but they may differ in some of its details. The case is exactly like the case in the fundamental jurisprudential principles. Just as they do not differ with one another in that the reference in case of disagreement is the Book and the Sunnah and what the righteous Salaf were upon, they may differ, for example, in a hadith: is it authentic or weak? This does not harm. And they may differ in understanding an authentic hadith; and this does not harm; because the principle and the rule are agreed upon among them. It is not so with those who opposed them.
We mentioned recently that all Islamic sects, without excluding any, all say: We are upon the Book and the Sunnah. But you will not find any of them saying: And upon what the righteous Salaf were upon. So this is a difference in the principle, in the rule. This is the disagreement that harms. As for disagreement in an issue, that does not harm. There is no difference between whether this issue is in creed or in the rulings of the Shari'ah. What is important is that the principle and the rule are agreed upon. So the example that theThe questioner : other brought is the disagreement in the vision: Did Muhammad see his Lord? Yes, there is some of this disagreement, but this disagreement is not of the first type; meaning, it is not established from any of the Salaf that he said with certainty that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) did not see his Lord—may Allah forgive me—he saw his Lord. Rather, the opposite came from them. All that is the case is that the one who affirmed the vision is Ibn Abbas (may Allah be pleased with him), but the narrations that came from him are confused. Therefore, a scholar cannot be certain that Ibn Abbas was saying the opposite of Lady Aisha, for example. Lady Aisha was denying the vision of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) of his Lord on the night of the Isra and Mi'raj with certainty, and she considered it a great matter, anyone who might say that Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) saw his Lord. So it was narratedThe Shaykh : in "Sahih" of both (al-Bukhari and Muslim) from the hadith of Masruq from Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) that he said to her—Masruq is the one who said: O Mother of the Believers, did Muhammad see his Lord? She said: My hair stood on end from what you said. He said: O Mother of the Believers, have mercy on me and do not be hasty with me; does not Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) say: ? She said: I know what is in that; I asked the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) and he said: I saw Jibril in his created form twice, and he has six hundred wings. Then she affirmed her denial of the Prophet's (peace and blessings be upon him) seeing Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He): Three things: whoever tells you about them has committed a great lie against Allah. Whoever tells you that Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) saw his Lord has committed a great lie against Allah. Then she recited His saying (Blessed and Exalted is He): , and she recited His saying (the Exalted): ; so whoever tells you that Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) knew what was in tomorrow has committed a great lie against Allah. Then she recited His saying (the Exalted): , and whoever tells you that Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) concealed something he was ordered to convey has committed a great lie against Allah. Then she recited His saying (the Exalted): .
This is an authentic narration in *Sahih al-Bukhari* and *Sahih Muslim* that explicitly states that Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) was certain that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) did not see his Lord. There are other hadiths that confirm her denial. This particular hadith is *mawquf* (stopping at a Companion) because it is a statement by Aisha, but there are *marfu'* (traced to the Prophet) hadiths that confirm what Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) said, such as the hadith of Abu Dharr, which is also in *Sahih Muslim*. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was asked: "Did you see your Lord?" He said: . The details of this are in the hadith of Abu Musa al-Ash'ari, which Imam Muslim mentioned after the hadith of Abu Dharr. In it, he (peace be upon him) said: . So, when he (peace be upon him) was asked, "Did you see your Lord?" he denied it. Thus, Aisha, being the wife of the Messenger (peace be upon him), this means that she spoke with knowledge she received from her husband; for when he (peace and blessings be upon him) was asked, "Did you see your Lord?" he said: . So Aisha states with certainty that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) did not see his Lord, and she has two hadiths... Who among the Companions differed on this issue? Three narrations are reported from Ibn Abbas: "He saw his Lord," "He saw his Lord with his heart," and "He saw his Lord with his eye." These are three narrations via Simak ibn Harb from Ibn Abbas. This means that the narrator of the vision affirmed by Ibn Abbas contradicted the original, saying: "He saw his Lord." But the problem is whether he saw his Lord with his eye or with his insight in his heart? Here come these three narrations: "He saw his Lord" in a general sense, then two other restricted narrations, but one contradicts the other. One says: "He saw his Lord with his heart," and the other says: "He saw his Lord with his eye." So the narration from Ibn Abbas is confused; therefore, we cannot say that Ibn Abbas contradicts the statement of Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her).
The purpose of this word, which completes the previous statement, is that such a difference may be valid, but not every difference is valid, and this is an example of that. So we can say that the text of the disagreement between Aisha and Ibn Abbas on this issue is not precise, because the narration from Ibn Abbas is confused, as I mentioned earlier.
Other than that?