Is it taken from the hadith (I did not hesitate in anything as I hesitated in taking the soul of My servant) that Allah hesitates?

The questioner : In "Al-'Aqeedah al-Tahawiyyah," it is mentioned regarding the hadith: , and it says, "So he affirmed hesitation for Himself." Is the issue of hesitation, Shaykh, that we say, is it permissible for us to say that Allah hesitates, or do we pass it over as it came in the hadith?

The Shaykh : Yes, it does not depart from the general rule. That is, the legal terms, whether they are from the Qur'an or the Sunnah, have their meanings. But these meanings are understood from the language and are not defined in terms of how they are, due to their connection to the Divine Essence. So, in my view, there is no difference between the word "hesitation" and "wonder," "laughter," "coming," "arrival," "descending," and other attributes established in the Book and the Sunnah. Since these words have known meanings and are not linguistically unknown, they are interpreted as the language requires. However, the modality is delegated. This is the Salafi methodology by which we profess our faith, contrary to the people of figurative interpretation, or rather the people of denial of attributes on one hand, and contrary to the people of pure delegation who delegate the meanings as well as the modality of the meanings. We are in the middle between these people of figurative interpretation/denial and the people of pure delegation. We differ from the people of pure delegation in that we say the meanings of such words are known linguistically, so we do not say, "By Allah, we do not know the meaning of joy, laughter, descending, arrival, and so on," including hesitation. But we delegate the modality of these attributes considering their connection to Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He). And we do not engage in figurative interpretation, because figurative interpretation is denial of attributes, as you know. So, I do not see that we should stop at this word because it is unusual and not frequently mentioned in the Prophetic hadiths. Do we interpret it or accept it? Acceptance here is on two levels: we accept the modality and we believe in the linguistic meaning. Hesitation between two things is known. But did Allah hesitate as one of His servants hesitates? The answer is no. In any case, Ibn Taymiyyah has a very long discourse on clarifying this meaning to people's minds. In fact, I am recalling that detail now, but this belief is sufficient for people. How does He laugh? How does He rejoice? No "how," as came from Imam Malik (may Allah have mercy on him), the Imam of the City of Migration, when...