The Divine Attributes: Between Affirmation and Negation

Al-Tadmuriyyah's most technically precise chapter concerns the method of handling the divine attributes. Ibn Taymiyyah presents a systematic account of how to navigate between the twin errors of ta'til (negation) and tamthil (likening). His method is often summarized in the phrase 'ithbat bila kayf wa-tanzih bila ta'til': affirmation without asking how, and transcendence without stripping. Every attribute mentioned in the Quran or the authenticated Sunnah is affirmed as a real attribute of Allah. The affirmation is genuine, not merely verbal or formal. At the same time, the nature of the attribute is entirely unlike any creaturely attribute of the same name, and we are not in a position to know what the divine nature is like in itself.

Ibn Taymiyyah distinguishes between the meaning of an attribute (ma'na) and its modality (kayfiyya). The meaning is accessible: when the Quran says Allah is knowing, we understand what knowledge is in principle, because we ourselves have knowledge. We can therefore grasp, in a general way, what is being affirmed when Allah is described as knowing. What we cannot grasp is the specific nature of the divine knowledge: how it works, what it is like from the inside, what its relationship is to the divine essence. The modality belongs to the unseen, and asking about it is a category error. This distinction between meaning and modality allows Ibn Taymiyyah to affirm that the divine attributes are genuinely meaningful and communicative without implying that they reveal the full nature of the divine being.

The concept of tafwid, often translated as 'consigning the meaning to Allah,' receives careful treatment in Al-Tadmuriyyah. Ibn Taymiyyah distinguishes between two versions of tafwid. The first, which he endorses, is consigning the modality to Allah: we do not know what the divine attributes are like in their mode of existence, and we submit this question to Allah's knowledge. The second, which he rejects, is consigning the meaning itself to Allah: treating the divine attribute-descriptions as having no accessible meaning at all, as purely opaque designations whose content is entirely unknown. The second version, he argues, empties the divine self-descriptions of communicative content and makes revelation functionally useless for the purpose of knowing Allah.

Ibn Taymiyyah also argues that his method is more consistent than the alternatives. The Ash'ari school affirmed some attributes (the seven rational attributes: life, knowledge, power, will, hearing, sight, speech) while interpreting others allegorically (the hand, the face, the rising above the Throne). Ibn Taymiyyah asked on what principle this selective treatment was based. If the concern about anthropomorphism justifies allegorizing the hand, it equally applies to the seven rational attributes, since created beings also have knowledge, power, and will. Conversely, if the seven attributes can be affirmed as real without implying resemblance, the same logic permits affirming all the attributes mentioned in the revealed sources. Consistency, in his view, requires either affirming all or allegorizing all, and since allegorizing all leads to ta'til, the consistent Sunni position is to affirm all with the qualification of transcendence.