Are all the attributes known in meaning?
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The questioner : ... and as for some of the attributes, do they have meanings while others do not ...?
The Shaykh : That is not correct. They are all known in meaning. They are all known in meaning.
The questioner : ... the Hand. They say we do not know its meaning.
The Shaykh : Strange! You do not know the meaning of the Hand?!
The questioner : They say ...
The Shaykh : In the first place, whenever the Hand is mentioned, it is not mentioned in an absolute sense for Allah; it is attributed to Allah, so it becomes a Hand specific to Him. When I say to you: the hand of the scorpion, the hand of the human, the hand of the dog, and the hand of the camel, do you understand from this meaning that all these hands are the same? No. The hand of each thing is appropriate to it. So the Hand by which Allah grasps the heavens and the earth, like a mustard seed in one of our hands, yes, and He folds the sky with His Right Hand like the folding of a scroll for books. Does any hand resemble it? No, absolutely not. The point is that all these matters are, praise be to Allah, known. It is not possible for Allah to address us with something unknown. This is of the highest importance, of the highest importance: knowing Allah by His names and attributes. If we said that it is possible for Allah to address us with what we do not know, then the Qur'an would have been revealed in this regard for no purpose, for no purpose. Yes, in any case, we have something of this type before us. We wait until we reach it. Yes.
The Shaykh : That is not correct. They are all known in meaning. They are all known in meaning.
The questioner : ... the Hand. They say we do not know its meaning.
The Shaykh : Strange! You do not know the meaning of the Hand?!
The questioner : They say ...
The Shaykh : In the first place, whenever the Hand is mentioned, it is not mentioned in an absolute sense for Allah; it is attributed to Allah, so it becomes a Hand specific to Him. When I say to you: the hand of the scorpion, the hand of the human, the hand of the dog, and the hand of the camel, do you understand from this meaning that all these hands are the same? No. The hand of each thing is appropriate to it. So the Hand by which Allah grasps the heavens and the earth, like a mustard seed in one of our hands, yes, and He folds the sky with His Right Hand like the folding of a scroll for books. Does any hand resemble it? No, absolutely not. The point is that all these matters are, praise be to Allah, known. It is not possible for Allah to address us with something unknown. This is of the highest importance, of the highest importance: knowing Allah by His names and attributes. If we said that it is possible for Allah to address us with what we do not know, then the Qur'an would have been revealed in this regard for no purpose, for no purpose. Yes, in any case, we have something of this type before us. We wait until we reach it. Yes.