[Druspills]

Under the point "He is not like unto anything from among His creation" Mullah Ali al-Qari comments:

"His existence (wujud) is His essence (dhat), but His attributes are neigher His essence ('ayn dhatihi) itself - in opposition to the statement of the philosophers - nor are they other than His essence (ghayru dhatihi) as the Mu'tazila have said nor are they orginated (hadith) as the Karramiyya have said. This is in complete contrast to created beings, since their attributes are other than their essence according to everyone."

Mufti Abdur Rahman comments on Mullah Ali al-Qari's saying in two footnotes:

This statement is slightly confusing. In essence, The Mu'tazila and the philosophers negated His attributes since they said Allah is powerful and All-knowing through His essence and not through an attribute of power or knowledge, Taftazani says, "And thus it has been established that Allah possesses the attributes of knowledge, power, life, and so on. This is unlike the view of the Mu'tazila who assert that He is knowing without possessing knowledge; He is powerful without possessing power, and so on. But their view is self-evidently impossible, for it is analogous to our saying, 'A thing is black but there is no blackness in it.'...The philosophers and the Mu'tazilites denied this and asserted that the attributse ar ethe very essence itself. This means that His essence with respect to its connection with things known (ma'lumat) is described by the term "Knowing" and with respect to things over which He has power (maqdurat) is described by the term "Powerful," and so on (A Commentary on the Creed of Islam 49-50).

[In the next footnote] Thus, the correct belief according to the Ahl al-Sunna is that His attributes are neither His essence itself nor are they other than His essence. To elborate, it has been established the Qur'an and Sunna that Allah possesses many attributes (sifat). However, if His attributes are said to be His very essence [as the Mu'tazila and philosophers claim], it results in His essence being devoid of attributes, since they would be one and the same as His essence, whereas they are understood to be two different things. The meaning of the "entity" or "essence" (dhat) of Allah is something completely different from his "attributes" (sifat). On the other hand, saying they are totally other than His essence is also problematic since this means they exist separately or are accidents (a'rad) and thus possible in their nature. This also means that they can exist or not exist as is the case in created beings, whereas the attributes of Allah are eternal. So while people can lose their power, sight, or hearing, Allah Most High cannot. Also, their being eternal and separate from Him would also mean that there exists a multiplicity of eternal beings (see Al-Ta'liq al-Muyassar 63-64). A more simple way to understand this maybe through the following example about a human attribute. Upon entry of a knowledgeable person into a room we would not normally say, "knowledge entered the room." Instead we would either use the person's name or use an honorary title and say 'Shaykh so and so," or "Professor so and so" entered teh room. Although we acknowledge the face that the individual possesses the attribute of knowledge, the attribute is neigher a completely independent entity separate from the person such that we will say, "Knowledge itself entered," nor is it intrinsically part of the person's essence such that we not acknowledge it but deny it. We must comprehend a special associatoin between the two. The difference is that there is no doubt that the human attribute is acquired by the person and prone to loss in the future, whereas the attributes of Allah have always been associated with Him and will remain that way for eternity.