The latter includes those attributes that describe God in a negative way...

The latter includes those attributes that describe God in a negative way, that is, by indicating divine freedom from imperfections and deficiencies. Examples are that God is not a body and has no place, God has no part or partner and He neither begets nor is he begotten. The other way of classifying divine attributes is to divide them into the attributes of essence and action.

Attributes of essence ( al-sifat al-dhatiyyah ) are those attributes that describe divine essence and do not depend on any being other than God Himself, such as power and life. Attributes relating to action ( al- sifat al-fi‘liyyah ) are those attributes that describe divine acts and, indeed, inform us of a relationship between God and other beings. For example, divine creatorship describes a very specific relationship between God and His creatures.

This attribute becomes actual when there is something that is created by God. Another example is forgiveness. There must be someone who is forgiven for us to be able to say that God has forgiven. Of course, to create or to forgive depends on certain essential qualities of God. In what follows, we will try to avoid sophisticated theological discussions and instead, will just classify divine names and attributes that are mentioned in the Qur’an according to their similarities.…