A supplementary applied review of analogy and likeness, will and approval, creation and acquisition, faith and deeds, and the Hereafter Read the bilingual lesson for Applied Review: Objections and Fine Doctrinal Distinctions and test your understanding with a focused quiz.
Lesson
1. Illustration and real likeness
وَلَا شَيْءَ مِثْلُهُ
Nothing is like Him.
An illustration helps explain a meaning, whereas real likeness asserts equality or similarity in the actual nature or attributes of two things. The Qur’anic illustration involving light does not imply that Allah’s essence or attributes resemble a lamp or a niche.
Allah is incomparable in His essence and attributes. An illustration used to clarify a meaning must not be treated as an equal or counterpart to His reality.
2. Vision and full comprehension
لَا تُدْرِكُهُ الْأَبْصَارُ وَهُوَ يُدْرِكُ الْأَبْصَارَ
Eyes do not encompass Him, while He encompasses all eyes. (Al-Anʿām 6:103)
Vision means seeing, while complete comprehension or encompassing means grasping a reality in its entirety. The vision of Allah for the people of Paradise is affirmed, but it does not entail their encompassing His essence.
Affirming vision also does not establish a bodily modality for Allah. Vision is affirmed, encompassing is denied, and its modality is left unspecified.
3. Eternal attribute and created object
مَا زَالَ بِصِفَاتِهِ قَدِيمًا قَبْلَ خَلْقِهِ
Allah was eternally possessed of His attributes before creating anything.
The attribute of creating is eternal, while the created object comes into existence. The attribute of providing is eternal, while recipients and their provisions come into being at their appointed times. A new creature does not bring a new attribute into existence in Allah.
Likewise, He deserves the name “Giver of life to the dead” even before the act of bringing the dead to life. Eternal perfection and the occurrence of its effect are distinct.
4. Divine speech and human recitation
وَلَا نَقُولُ بِخَلْقِ الْقُرْآنِ
We do not hold that the Qur’an is created.
Allah’s attribute of speech is eternal. A person’s recitation, vocal sound, and movement of the tongue are human acts that occur in time. The created nature of a human action does not prove that Allah’s speech is created.
This distinction preserves both the Qur’an’s attribution to Allah and the temporal character of the reciter’s act. The divine attribute and the human act are not the same thing.
5. Divine will and divine approval
وَلَا يَرْضَى لِعِبَادِهِ الْكُفْرَ
Allah does not approve of disbelief for His servants. (Az-Zumar 39:7)
Will (mashīʾah) concerns what comes to pass, whereas approval (riḍā) concerns what is pleasing to Allah. A human act of disobedience does not occur outside Allah’s will, but its occurrence does not mean that Allah approves of it.
People have been granted choice in obedience and disobedience and are accountable for misuse of that choice. Allah’s effective will, human choice, and divine disapproval of sin must not be conflated.
6. Knowledge, will, decree, and measure
Knowledge (ʿilm) means that Allah already knows all that will occur. Will (mashīʾah) concerns what He wills to occur. Decree (qaḍāʾ) concerns His decision, and measure (qadar) concerns what is determined for each thing.
These four concepts are related but are not four interchangeable names for one meaning. Equating knowledge with will erases the difference between knowing and willing; reducing decree to mere knowledge loses its element of determination.
All things lie within Allah’s knowledge, will, decree, and measure, while the distinctions among these terms remain important.
7. Creation and acquisition of acts
Human acts have two distinct attributions: creation (khalq) belongs to Allah and acquisition (kasb) belongs to the servant. Allah creates the act; the servant chooses and acquires it through intention and choice.
Treating a person as an independent creator of their acts denies dependence on Allah’s creative power. Erasing choice and acquisition altogether makes accountability, commands, prohibitions, reward, and punishment unintelligible.
Affirming both creation and acquisition preserves the divine and human dimensions of the act without confusing them.
8. Two senses of capacity
Health, means, and practical ability can exist before an act and form the basis for legal responsibility. The material and physical ability required for pilgrimage illustrates this sense.
In contrast, divine enabling (tawfīq) accompanies the performance of an act. Possessing outward means does not make the occurrence of an action independent of Allah’s enabling.
Capacity before an act and enabling with an act are not contradictory claims. They describe different aspects of ability and must not be merged.
9. Decree, means, and reliance
Belief in decree does not mean abandoning action. One uses lawful means, avoids prohibited methods, and recognizes that the result remains subject to Allah’s decree.
Using means differs from treating means as independently effective. The first fulfils responsibility; the second overlooks the One who makes causes effective. Taking practical steps does not contradict reliance on Allah.
This conviction supports patience in hardship, gratitude in success, and freedom from pride. Decree must not be used to excuse laziness or unlawful methods.
10. Divine foreknowledge and final outcomes
وَالْأَعْمَالُ بِالْخَوَاتِيمِ
Actions are judged by their endings.
Allah already knows what each person will do and how that person’s life will end. Humans do not possess this knowledge, so a person’s present outward condition cannot establish their final destiny with certainty.
Divine foreknowledge does not excuse inaction. The duty to act remains, together with the need to choose good, repent, and pray for a good ending.
11. The essence and excellence of faith
وَالْإِيمَانُ وَاحِدٌ وَأَهْلُهُ فِي أَصْلِهِ سَوَاءٌ
Faith is one, and believers share its essential basis.
The essence of faith concerns affirmation in the heart. Believers share this fundamental basis, while their excellence in faith differs through God-consciousness, reverence, resistance to desire, and steadfast good conduct.
Sharing faith’s essence does not make everyone equal in practice or rank. Differences in piety also do not mean that every failing necessarily destroys the essential basis of faith.
12. Sin, declaring lawful, and the status of faith
Sin (maʿṣiyah) is committing a prohibited act while acknowledging that it is prohibited. Declaring lawful (istiḥlāl) is treating what is definitively forbidden as permissible. Doing wrong and rejecting the prohibition are not the same matter.
Sin remains blameworthy even where its commission does not automatically amount to disbelief. Rejecting an established prohibition is a different issue from weakness in practice.
Judgments of faith and disbelief are serious; they cannot be made hastily without examining the actual claim, established belief, and relevant legal conditions.
13. Outward judgment and inward reality
A person’s outward declaration and conduct may be observed, but the certain state of the heart belongs to Allah’s knowledge. Acting on outward evidence differs from claiming definitive knowledge of the inner state.
Wrongdoing or conduct resembling the signs of hypocrisy may be identified, but it does not confer certainty about the person’s heart. Nor may one declare a particular person destined for Paradise or Hell without authoritative grounds.
وَنَذَرُ سَرَائِرَهُمْ إِلَى اللَّهِ
We leave their inward secrets to Allah.
14. Major sinners, grace, and justice
A person who dies affirming tawḥīd and faith but without repenting of a major sin remains under Allah’s will. Such a believer is not automatically regarded as eternally confined to Hell.
Allah may forgive through grace or punish through justice. The eventual destiny of those who die in tawḥīd must not be confused with that of those who die in disbelief; intercession and mercy are also affirmed in their proper context.
This does not trivialize sin, nor does it justify a definitive sentence of eternal punishment for every sinful believer. Fear and hope both remain.
15. Life in the barzakh and worldly life
Belief in the prophets’ life in the barzakh does not deny their death. Rather, a real, distinctive post-death life is affirmed, whose modality differs from ordinary worldly life.
Reports concerning their prayer in the graves, response to greetings, and the presentation of blessings are discussed in relation to this distinctive life. It must not simply be equated in every respect with normal earthly bodily activity.
Affirming life and recognizing a different mode of life are compatible claims.
16. Barzakh, giving life, and resurrection
The barzakh is the stage between death and the resurrection, where the realities of reward, punishment, and a distinct mode of life are affirmed.
Resurrection (baʿth) means being raised on the Day of Judgment. It is not merely another term for the conditions of the grave. The barzakh and resurrection are distinct stages of the unseen.
This distinction preserves the different places of questioning in the grave, comfort or punishment there, gathering, records of deeds, reckoning, the balance, and the bridge.
17. Actual perishing and possibility of perishing
كُلُّ شَيْءٍ هَالِكٌ إِلَّا وَجْهَهُ
Everything is perishing except His Face. (Al-Qaṣaṣ 28:88)
Actual perishing means that something in fact ceases to exist. Perishability by possibility means that a created thing has no self-sufficient permanence; its continued existence depends on Allah’s will and power.
The enduring existence of Paradise and Hell is understood using this distinction. Created things are not given eternal, intrinsic self-sufficiency; rather, Allah preserves what He wills.
18. Clear and ambiguous texts and the status of interpretation
A clear text (muḥkam) has an established, evident meaning. An ambiguous text (mutashābih) may contain aspects whose exact meaning or modality is not fully accessible to human understanding. Unseen divine attributes are not to be measured by created modalities.
Where a possible interpretation is offered, possibility must not be promoted to certain knowledge. Speculative understanding and definitive revelation differ in epistemic status.
Submission affirms what has been established while refusing to turn unsupported conjecture into a necessary belief.
19. Between likening and denying attributes
Tashbīh likens Allah’s attributes to the attributes of creatures. Taʿṭīl denies or suspends the attributes affirmed of Him.
The balanced position affirms divine attributes while rejecting likeness to creation. One does not deny the attributes to escape anthropomorphism, nor impose creaturely modes on Allah in order to affirm them.
Hearing, seeing, speech, and the other attributes are affirmed on this basis. Affirming an attribute and refusing to assign it a created modality are consistent.
20. Excess and diminution concerning prophethood
Excess (ghulūw) in honoring the Messenger ﷺ means elevating him to divinity or granting attributes proper to Allah alone. Diminution (taqṣīr) means reducing the established rank of prophethood and messengership.
The Messenger ﷺ is Allah’s servant and Messenger. Servanthood excludes divinity; messengership affirms his exalted prophetic office.
The balanced position neither denies prophetic rank nor passes beyond the proper bounds of human servanthood and messengership.
21. Balance between compulsion and independent creation
One extreme of compulsion (jabr) treats the person as having no intention or choice. The other extreme treats the person as an independent creator of acts.
The balanced view affirms both Allah’s creative power and human acquisition and choice. A human is neither an independent creator nor wholly devoid of intention and responsibility.
Commands, prohibitions, obedience, sin, reward, and punishment retain their proper meaning under this distinction.
22. Between false security and despair
False security (amn) means lacking any fear of punishment despite wrongdoing. Despair (iyās) means giving up hope of Allah’s forgiveness and mercy.
Fear recalls accountability and the seriousness of sin; hope sustains repentance, supplication, and turning back to Allah.
Hope does not make sin permissible, and fear should not extinguish trust in mercy. Preserving both is the balanced position.
23. Following sound authority and rejecting claims to the unseen
وَنَرَى الْجَمَاعَةَ حَقًّا وَصَوَابًا
We hold the community upon truth to be right and sound.
Commitment to the community is grounded in following truth, not merely numerical size or group identity. A newly proposed path does not become correct by opposing the Book, Sunnah, and established consensus.
For the same reason, the claims of soothsayers, diviners, or anyone claiming hidden knowledge contrary to these authorities are not accepted as sound proof. An assertion about the unseen is not itself religious evidence.
24. Consistency of belief and a good ending
فَهَذَا دِينُنَا وَاعْتِقَادُنَا ظَاهِرًا وَبَاطِنًا
This is our religion and creed, outwardly and inwardly.
Outward profession must be consistent with belief in the heart. Sincere devotion includes agreement between one’s words and inward conviction.
Since actions are judged by their endings, steadfast faith, continued good action, repentance, and supplication for a good ending remain important. These duties do not justify a claim of guaranteed salvation or despair of mercy.