The Attributes of Allāh

All praise is due to Allāh. May Allāh raise the rank of Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ and protect his nation from that which he feared for them.

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The Obligation of Knowing the Attributes

The scholars of the later generations established that it is a personal obligation upon every accountable person — meaning every sane person who has reached puberty — to know thirteen attributes among the attributes of Allāh. These are: Existence, Eternality, Everlastingness, Dissimilarity to the Creation, Independence of Others, Power, Will, Knowledge, Life, Speech, Hearing, Sight, and Oneness. Whatever negates these attributes is impossible to ascribe to Allāh.

Since these attributes appear frequently throughout the religious texts, the scholars ruled that knowing them is obligatory upon every individual Muslim, not merely upon scholars.

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Existence

Allāh the Exalted exists eternally and everlastingly. His existence is not brought about by the creating of a creator. He exists by necessity, meaning His non-existence is inconceivable to the sound mind.

The existence of everything other than Allāh is possible in itself. It is mentally conceivable that it could exist after non-existence, and that it could go out of existence after existence. Allāh alone has the Necessary Existence.

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Eternality

Eternality means that Allāh has no beginning to His existence. He existed before time, before place, before darkness and light. When scholars say Allāh is eternal, they mean His existence has no starting point whatsoever.

The proof of His eternality is that had He not been eternal, He would have had a beginning. That beginning would require someone to bring Him into existence, and that leads to an impossibility. It is therefore established by reason that Allāh has no beginning, and His eternality is confirmed.

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Everlastingness

Everlastingness means that non-existence does not follow His existence. Once it is established that Allāh is eternal, it necessarily follows that He is everlasting. Had it been possible for His existence to be followed by non-existence, He could not have been eternal in the first place.

Allāh is the One Who is everlasting by Himself. Nothing else is everlasting by itself. As for Paradise and Hell, their everlastingness is not intrinsic to them. It is because Allāh willed them to be everlasting. In themselves it is mentally possible that they could go out of existence.

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Hearing

Allāh hears all sounds with an eternal and everlasting hearing. His hearing is not like our hearing. It is not through an ear or ear canal. Nothing escapes His hearing, no matter how faint or distant.

The proof of the necessity of His hearing is that had He not been attributed with hearing, He would be attributed with deafness, and deafness is a deficiency. Deficiency is impossible for Allāh. Whoever says that Allāh hears with an ear has blasphemed.

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Sight

Allāh sees all things with an eternal and everlasting sight. His sight is not through a pupil or organ, for senses related to organs are among the attributes of the creation.

The proof of the necessity of His sight is that had He not been attributed with sight, He would be blind, and blindness is a deficiency. Deficiency is impossible for Allāh.

Allāh the Exalted said:

وَهُوَ السَّمِيعُ البَصِيرُ

And He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing. [Sūrat al-Shūrā, 11]

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Speech

The speech of Allāh is an eternal and everlasting attribute. He is a Speaker by this attribute: a Commander, Forbidder, Promiser, and Threatener. His speech is not like the speech of creation. It is not a sound that takes place by the passage of air or the collision of bodies, nor a letter that is cut off by closing the lips or moving the tongue.

We believe that Mūsā heard the eternal speech of Allāh without it being a letter or a sound, just as the believers will see Allāh in the Hereafter without Him being a mass or a characteristic.

Imām Abū Ḥanīfah said:

اللهُ يَتَكَلَّمُ بِلَا آلَةٍ وَلَا حَرْفٍ وَنَحْنُ نَتَكَلَّمُ بِآلَةٍ وَحَرْفٍ

Allāh speaks without an instrument and without a letter, and we speak with an instrument and a letter.

The word Qurʾān has two usages. It is used in reference to the revealed expression sent to Muḥammad ﷺ, and in reference to the speech which is the eternal attribute of Allāh. That eternal speech is not a letter or a sound, neither Arabic nor any other language. All of the revealed books are expressions of that one eternal speech.

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Will

Will is an eternal and everlasting attribute of Allāh. By it He specifies what is mentally possible with existence rather than non-existence, with one attribute over another, and with one time rather than another.

The proof of the necessity of His will is that had He not been willful, nothing of this world would exist. The world is a mental possibility. Its existence is not inherently necessary. Since it exists, it must have been brought into existence by the specification of One who willed its existence over non-existence. That One is Allāh.

The will of Allāh encompasses the deeds of all slaves entirely, both the good and the bad. Everything that has come into existence, whether obedience or sin, belief or blasphemy, has come to exist by the will of Allāh. This is perfection in reference to Allāh. Had something in His dominion taken place without His will, that would be evidence of weakness, and weakness is impossible for Allāh.

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Power

It is necessary that Allāh has power over everything. He is not attributed with weakness or inability. His power is absolute and complete. Nothing occurs in existence except by His power, and nothing is beyond His power.

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Knowledge

The knowledge of Allāh is eternal, just as His self is eternal. He never ceased to be knowledgeable about His self, His attributes, and everything He brings into existence. He is not attributed with eventual knowledge, because had it been permissible for Him to be attributed with eventual attributes, eternality would be negated from Him. Whatever is a vessel for events must itself be an event.

Allāh the Exalted said:

وَللهِ الأَسْماءُ الحسْنَى

Allāh has the perfect names. [Sūrat al-Aʿrāf, 180]

And He said:

وَللهِ الْمَثَلُ الأَعْلَى

Allāh has attributes of perfection. [Sūrat al-Naḥl, 60]

Every deficiency is therefore impossible to be an attribute of Allāh. Whoever says that Allāh acquires new knowledge has blasphemed.

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Life

Life is necessary to attribute to Allāh the Exalted. He is living unlike those who are alive. His life is eternal and everlasting, not sustained by soul and blood. The proof of the necessity of His life is the existence of this world, because had He not been living, nothing of this world would exist.

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Oneness

The meaning of Oneness is that Allāh is not a self composed of parts. There is no self like His self, and no one other than Him has an attribute like His attribute or a doing like His doing. What is meant by Oneness is not oneness of number in the way that numbers are counted. Oneness of number implies a half and parts as well. The meaning is rather that He has no similar.

Allāh the Exalted said:

لَو كَانَ فِيهِمَا ءَالهَةٌ إِلا اللهُ لَفَسَدَتَا

Had there been for the heavens and earth gods other than Allāh, they would have been in ruins. [Sūrat al-Anbiyāʾ, 22]

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Independence of Others

The meaning of His independence of the creation is His not being in need of anything other than Himself. He does not need someone to specify Him with existence, because being in need of another would negate His eternality. He does not need a place, a direction, or anything in which to dwell, because He is not like any of the different types of things.

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Dissimilarity to the Creation

It is necessary that Allāh be different from all created things. He does not resemble anything of His creation. He is not a volume that occupies a space and He is not an attribute that stands through something else.

Imām Abū Ḥanīfah said:

الخَالِقُ لَا يُشبِهُ المَخْلُوقَ

The Creator does not resemble His creation.

Abū Sulaymān al-Khaṭṭābiyy said: “What is obligatory upon every Muslim to know is that our Lord is not someone with an image or a shape, for the image dictates a manner of being, and that is negated from Allāh and His attributes.”

The decisive rule agreed upon among the people of truth, taken from the saying of Allāh, is this: whatever you imagine in your mind, Allāh is different from that.

Allāh the Exalted said:

لَيسَ كَمِثلِهِ شَىءٌ

Nothing resembles Him in any way whatsoever. [Sūrat al-Shūrā, 11]

And He said:

وَلَم يَكُنْ لَّهُ كُفُوًا أَحَدٌ

There was never a similar for Him. [Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ, 4]

Imām al-Rifāʿiyy said:

غَايَةُ مَعرِفَةِ اللهِ اليَقِينُ بِوُجُودِهِ بِلَا كَيفٍ وَلَا مَكَانٍ

The extent that one can know about Allāh is the certitude in His existence without a how and without a place.

Al-Ghazāliyy said in Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn:

إِنَّهُ لَا يُشبِهُ شَيئًا وَلَا يُشبِهُهُ شَيءٌ بَل هُوَ الحَيُّ القَيُّومُ الَّذِي لَا يُشبِهُ شَيئًا

He does not resemble anything, and nothing resembles Him. Rather He is the Living, the Qayyūm, who does not resemble anything. How would the creation resemble its Creator, and the limited thing resemble the One who limited it, and the image resemble the One who gave it the image?

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All of the Attributes of Allāh Are Perfect

The attributes of Allāh are eternal and everlasting because His self is eternal. He does not acquire an attribute He did not eternally have. The knowledge of Allāh is not renewed. Allāh created everything in accordance with His eternal knowledge, His eternal power, and His eternal will. Allāh has encompassed the past, the present, and the future with His eternal knowledge.

Whoever says that Allāh acquires new knowledge has blasphemed.

Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭaḥāwiyy said:

مَنْ وَصَفَ اللهَ بِمَعنًى مِن مَعَانِي البَشَرِ فَقَد كَفَرَ

Whoever attributes to Allāh an attribute of the humans has blasphemed.

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This article is part of IKF’s Ilm al-Aqīdah series, drawn from the works of the scholars of Ahlus-Sunnah wal-Jamāʿah.