They were so steeped in that belief that they applied the...

They were so steeped in that belief that they applied the human limitations to God too. They thought that God was present and active inside the matter and prevailed over it. But that presence and that control and management were based on the same principles as a material cause brings out and controls a material effect. Such a belief was not a specialty of the Jews; it was and is held even by those followers of Islam who believe in fundamentality of matter.

For these people, God's life, know­ledge, power, choice, will, decree, order and management have the same meanings as do their own life, knowledge etc. It is a disease for which there is no cure. And the signs and warnings can avail nothing to a people who do not understand. Such views have made Islam a laughing-stock in the eyes of those who have no access to the true faith and correct Islamic knowledge.

Those detractors say: The Muslims ascribe to their Prophet the saying, "Allâh created Adam in His likeness"; and these followers of the Prophet have created a god in the likeness of Adam. One group of the Muslims ascribes to its Lord all the qualities of the matter. Another group does not understand anything of God's beautiful attributes; consequently it reduces all divine attributes to negatives.

It says that the names and adjectives, which are used for both God and His creatures, have quite different mean­ings in both cases. When we say, "God is Existent, Knowing, Powerful and Alive", the words denote some divine qualities totally incomprehensible to us, completely different from the meanings they have when they are applied to a human being. Therefore, it is necessary to reduce these words to their negatives.

What the above sentence, for example, means is this: "God is not non-existent, not unaware, not powerless and not lifeless." Such explanation implies that they believe in that which they do not understand, worship that which they are uncertain about and invite others to believe in that which neither they nor anyone else knows anything about. The word of truth is enough to dispel such falsehoods.

The people have been admonished by the true religion to hold fast to the essence of reality and steer clear between the above-men­tioned two extremes. They should know that Allâh is not like His creatures, nor is He a set of negative propositions.