Affirming Allah's Attributes as They Appear in Texts

Among the most important chapters of Al-Ibanah is al-Ash'ari's treatment of the divine attributes — the sifat — as they appear in the Quran and the authentic Sunnah. This chapter reflects the heart of his theological return to the method of the Salaf: affirming what Allah said about Himself without distortion, denial, or likening to creation.

The Quran contains many verses in which Allah describes Himself using terms that carry obvious meaning in Arabic. Allah speaks of His Face (wajh), His Hands (yadayn), His Eye (ayn), His rising over the Throne (istiwa), His descent (nuzul), and many other characteristics. For the Salaf, the correct response to these texts was to read them as they came — affirming the reality they convey while acknowledging that these attributes do not resemble the attributes of created beings. Allah Himself established the principle: 'There is nothing like Him, and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing' (al-Shura: 11).

Al-Ash'ari in Al-Ibanah adopts this Salafi methodology explicitly. He affirms the attributes mentioned in the Quran and Sunnah at face value, without engaging in the ta'wil (reinterpretation) that characterized the Mu'tazilah and some later scholars. He writes that the Muslims of the early period affirmed these attributes and transmitted them without asking 'how' (bila kayf), and that this restraint was not a failure of intellect but a mark of sound theological method.

The contrast with the Mu'tazilah is instructive. The Mu'tazilah denied all attributes that implied any resemblance between Allah and creation, reducing the divine essence to a bare unity stripped of any describable characteristics. This approach, known as ta'til (stripping or emptying), was criticized by the Sunni scholars as effectively denying Allah's reality. To say that Allah has no real knowledge, no real power, no real speech — only to avoid the apparent implication of resemblance to creation — was seen as an extreme that overcorrected in the wrong direction.

Al-Ash'ari steers between the extreme of ta'til and the opposite extreme of tamthil (comparing Allah to creation). The way of safety, he affirms, is the way of the Salaf: affirming the attributes as they come in the texts, accepting their meanings in the language used by Allah and His Messenger, and leaving aside the question of their ultimate nature (kayfiyyah) to Allah alone. As Imam Malik famously said when asked about the istiwa: 'The istiwa is known, the how is unknown, belief in it is obligatory, and asking about it is an innovation.'

Practically, this means that when a Muslim reads 'The All-Merciful rose over the Throne' (Ta-Ha: 5), they affirm a real rising (istiwa) that befits Allah's majesty without asking what that rising looks like or comparing it to a king ascending a throne. When they read 'The Hand of Allah is over their hands' (al-Fath: 10), they affirm a real Hand without comparing it to a human hand or insisting it must be interpreted as power or blessing.

Al-Ash'ari's reaffirmation of this method in Al-Ibanah was a significant moment in the history of Islamic theology. It demonstrated that even a master of rational kalam, trained in the Mu'tazilite school, could recognize the superiority of the textual method of the Salaf when confronted with the full weight of Quranic and prophetic evidence.