ttempt should be made to understand or act
on them. Ibn 'Abbas, a Companion, says: "One must believe the mutashabih
verses, but not take them for a rule of conduct." Ibn Jubair was once {122}
asked to put the meaning of the Quran into writing. He became angry and
said: "I should rather be palsied in one-half of my body than do so."[107]
'Ayesha said: "Avoid those persons who dispute about the meaning of the
Quran, for they are those whom God has referred to in the words, 'whose
hearts are given to err.'"

The first reading is the one adopted by the Ashab, the Tabi'in and the
Taba-i-Tabi'in and the great majority of Commentators. The Sunnis
generally, and, according to the testimony of Fakr-ud-din Razi (A.H.
544-606), the Shafa'i sect are of the same opinion.

Those who take the opposite view are the Commentators Mujahid (died A.H.
101), Rabi' bin Ans and others. The scholastic theologians[108]
(Mutakalliman) generally adopt the latter reading.[109] They argued thus:
how could men believe what they did not know; to which their opponents
answered, that the act of belief in the unknown is the very thing here
praised by God. The scholastics then enquired why, since the Quran was sent
to be a guide and direction to men, were not all its verses muhkam? The
answer was, that the Arabs acknowledged two kinds of eloquence. One kind
was to arrange words and ideas in a plain and simple style so that the
meaning might be at once apparent, the other was to speak in figurative
language. Now, if the Quran had not contained both these styles of
composition, it could not have claimed the position it does as a book
absolutely perfect in form as well as in matter.[110]

Bearing in mind this fundamental difference of opinion, we can now pass on
to the consideration of the attributes.

{123} The essential attributes are Life, Knowledge, Power, Will, for
without these the others could not exist. Then the attributes of Hearing,
Seeing, Speech give us a further idea of perfection. These are the
"Sifat-i-Sabutiah," or affirmative attributes, the privation of which would
imply loss; there are also Sifat-i-Salbiah, or privative attributes, such
as--God has no form, is not limited by place, has no equal, &c. The acts of
sitting, rising, descending, the possession of face, hands, eyes, &c.,
being connected with the idea of corporeal existences imply imperfection
and apparently contradict the doctrine of "exemption" (tenzih) according to
which God