What is the ruling on one who affirms and accepts the two types of tawhid, oneness of worship and oneness of lordship, but denies the oneness of the names and attributes?

The questioner : The second question: What is the ruling on one who affirms and accepts the two types of tawhid, oneness of worship and oneness of lordship, but denies the oneness of the names and attributes, and supports this by citing Ibn Hazm’s statement that he does not hold to the oneness of the names and attributes? He said: "I do not understand that Allah has hands or other such attributes." He also said: "This knowledge, the oneness of the names and attributes, was not known by the people of the three generations whom the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) praised?"

The Shaykh : This is strange speech coming from a man who has not studied knowledge; this is the least that can be said. It is no surprise that a man is ignorant of tawhid to this extent, but the greatest of surprises is that he attributes his ignorance to the righteous Salaf in general. We do not want to engage in an emotional discussion with this man out of enthusiasm for the Salafi creed. Rather, we say: this man seems not to understand the Qur'an, or rather, he has not even read the Qur'an. The Qur'an says: . So Allah (Mighty and Majestic) negated any likeness between Himself and His attributes and any of the created things in any of that. His saying (Blessed and Exalted is He): . If we want to clarify the meaning of this noble verse, it means that He (the Exalted), just as He is One in His essence with no rival or partner in that, is likewise One in His attributes. Because He says: . How can this denier deny the oneness of the names and attributes when this is an explicit text in the Noble Qur'an?!
Added to this is Surat al-Ikhlas, which the Muslim recites perhaps at least once every day. . This is also the oneness of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) in His essence and in His attributes; He has no equal; meaning: He has no like or counterpart. And Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He), according to the majority of Muslims, is an essence possessed of all attributes of perfection. So just as He is One in His essence, He cannot be anything but One in His names and in His attributes as well. So this man’s statement that he does not know a tawhid called the oneness of the names and attributes is, in reality, a denial of the existence of Allah. Because—as Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah and other scholars of ours, the scholars of the Salaf, say—it is not possible to conceive of an essence that has no attributes. Every essence has attributes that correspond to it. And Allah (Mighty and Majestic) is an eternal essence with no beginning, as established in the Book and the Sunnah. So this essence must have attributes. These attributes are, in general, agreed upon by all scholars of the Sunnah, even if they differed in affirming some of the attributes. He is the Living, He is the Self-Sustaining. Does this man not describe his Lord (Blessed and Exalted is He) as the Living and the Self-Sustaining, and as He said: the Believer, the Guardian, the Mighty, the Compeller, the Majestic, and so on of these explicit attributes in the Qur'an?!
But it is very apparent that this man perhaps studied some of the science of kalam according to the Maturidi or Ash'ari school, and perhaps he delved deeper and read the views of the Mu'tazilah on the subject. So he fell into denying many of the divine attributes. Otherwise, what is the difference between affirming the attribute of life for Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) and affirming the attributes of sight and hearing?
And if we concede the affirmation of these attributes, then his statement that he cannot conceive of a tawhid called the oneness of the names and attributes is self-contradictory. And this is the lesser of two evils. Otherwise, we can compel him to admit that he denies the existence of Allah in reality, just as the Jahmiyyah were compelled to admit that. Some scholars of the Salaf said that the intent of the Jahmiyyah in their statement that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) is not in the sky is the denial of the existence of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He). Because when they say there is no God in the sky, then there is no God absolutely. Because if they deny the existence of Allah in the sky, which is an attribute of praise—Glory be to my Lord, the Most High—then they are even more likely to deny that He is in the earth, which is the opposite of the sky. So if among the names of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) is that He is the Most High and that He is the Living, the Self-Sustaining, yet there is a Muslim today who says: "I do not understand that there is a tawhid called the oneness of the names and attributes."
What appears to me behind what I heard of this man’s attribution is that he is one of the ta'til (denial of the divine attributes) who deny some of the divine attributes, if not all of them. If the first matter, which was reported to me just now, is definitively attributed to him—if he denies some of the attributes—then in the result, he is compelled to one of two things: either he affirms all the attributes established by the Book and the Sunnah, and this is the correct path, and that is what we hope for all Muslims; or he affirms all these attributes to be responsive to the texts of the Book and the Sunnah and not self-contradictory. Because we do not conceive of a person who believes that Allah is Living and this speaker is Living, and says: "Allah is Living, but His life is not like our life." And this is the correct path. So Allah is Hearing, but His hearing is not like our hearing.
So this is what we assume should be said about this man: he should believe in all the names of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) and His attributes with true belief. And this does not entail any likening of Allah to creation, nor does it entail denial of the divine attributes. He is Living, but not like our life. He is Hearing, but His hearing is not like our hearing. And so it is said for all the attributes, including the attribute that Allah has hands. This is an attribute that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) affirmed for Himself, and there is a sound hadith that confirms this attribute in particular. And all His attributes are likewise in general: the hands affirmed for Allah (Mighty and Majestic) are not like the hands of humans. So he (peace be upon him) said in some of the sound hadiths in Muslim and others: . This attribute is specific to Allah (Mighty and Majestic). So affirming the attribute of hands for Allah is necessary for every Muslim who truly believes in Allah and His Messenger.
And if you are amazed, then truly amazing is this man’s reliance on the school of Ibn Hazm, while he knows that his school is attributed to anomaly in the principles and the branches. To the extent that Ibn 'Abd al-Hadi, one of the prominent students of Ibn Taymiyyah, described him in his book "Tabaqat al-Huffaz" by saying: "Ibn Hazm is a severe Jahmi." So he attributed him to the Jahmiyyah because he denies, in this manner, the names of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) and some of His attributes, unfortunately. So this man, if he is studying the creed of the righteous Salaf in the creed of Abu Ja'far al-Tahawi, which represents the original school of Imam Abu Hanifah before the figurative interpretations of the later theologians among his followers came upon it, then he should read this creed and its commentary, and read the book or books of Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, so that it becomes clear in what low state he has fallen in his denial of the oneness of the names and attributes.
So we say of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) a word that this man and no one else can argue with: Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) is One in His essence, One in His oneness of worship, One in His names and attributes. And the scholars—I think this is not hidden from him—unanimously agreed that it is not permissible for a Muslim to take a name from the names of Allah. So it is not permissible for a Muslim to take the name al-Rahman, al-Rahim, al-Karim, al-'Aziz, and so on. This is the oneness of the names. So the oneness of the attributes is even more so; because it is not permissible—if it is not permissible to take a name from the names of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) for any servant or any created thing—then it is even less permissible to describe him with the meaning of this name, which is in reality, for Allah, Lord of the worlds, every name is a name for Him and an attribute for Him. So if it is not permissible to take a name from the names of Allah, it is not permissible to describe any of the servants of Allah with an attribute from the attributes of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He).
So Allah (Mighty and Majestic) says of Himself: , so is it permissible to describe any of His servants with an attribute from the attributes of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He)? The answer is: No. But the problem with this person is the verbal overlap that occurs between the attributes with which Allah (Mighty and Majestic) described Himself and the fact that a human being is also described with some of those attributes. Our Lord says: .

Another questioner : ... .

The Shaykh: ; so this is an overlap, , and then this All-Hearing, All-Seeing Lord of ours (Blessed and Exalted is He) says regarding the first human being and his descendants: ; so our Lord is described with the attributes of hearing and seeing, and the human being is also described with the attributes of hearing and seeing by the testimony of Allah, but there is no problem with this; because the hearing of Allah is not like our hearing, and His seeing is not like our seeing, so what objection can be raised against this description? And apply this to all the attributes of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He).
And we conclude this word with a statement I read in some manuscripts in the al-Zahiriyyah Library of al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, a statement that if the Muslim takes it and believes in it, he will be at rest from leaning to the right or the left in this important issue, which is the oneness of Allah in His names and attributes; al-Khatib al-Baghdadi (may Allah have mercy on him) says: "It is said regarding the attributes of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) in terms of affirmation and negation what is said regarding His Essence (Blessed and Exalted is He); so just as His Essence is a reality, so His attributes (Blessed and Exalted is He) are real attributes, and just as the Essence of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) does not resemble any of the essences, and these essences do not resemble the Essence of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He); so it is said regarding the attributes of Allah (Mighty and Majestic): that they are real attributes that do not resemble any of the attributes of the created beings, and nothing of the attributes of the created beings resembles anything of the attributes of the Lord of the Worlds; so Allah is not an essence, nor a likeness, nor an attribute."
And perhaps in this ... is sufficient as an answer to that question.