is, in virtue of His essence, in no way like the creatures He has
made. This was a difficulty, but the four great Imams all taught that it
was impious to enquire into these matters for all such allusions were
mutashabih. "The Imam Hanbal and other early divines followed in the path
of the early Muslims and said: 'We believe in the Book and the Sunnat, and
do not desire explanations. We know that the High God is not to be compared
to any created object: nor any creature with Him.'"[111] Imam As-Shafa'i
said that a man who enquired into such matters should be tied to a stake,
and carried about, and that the following proclamation should be made
before him: "This is the reward of him who left the Quran and the
Traditions for the study of scholastic theology." Imam Hanbal says:
"Whosoever moves his hand when he reads in the Quran the words, 'I have
created with my hand,' ought to have his hand cut off; and whoever
stretches forth his finger in repeating the saying of Muhammad, 'The heart
of the believer is between two fingers of the Merciful,' deserves to have
his finger cut off." At-Tirmizi when consulted about the statement of the
Prophet that God had descended to the lowest of the seven heavens, said:
"The descent is intelligible, the manner how is unknown; the belief therein
{124} is obligatory; and the asking about it is a blameable innovation."
But all such attempts to restrain discussion and investigation failed.

The two main points in the discussion of this question are (1) whether the
attributes of God are internal or external, whether they are part of His
essence or not, and (2) whether they are eternal or not.

The two leading Sects were the Sifatians (or Attributists) and the
Mutazilites. The Sifatians whom the early orthodox Muslims follow, taught
that the attributes of God are eternally inherent in His essence without
separation or change. Every attribute is conjoined with Him as life with
knowledge, or knowledge with power. They also taught that the mutashabih
verses were not to be explained, and such were those which seemed to show a
resemblance between God and His creatures. So at first they did not attempt
to give the meaning of the terms, "hands, eyes, face, &c.," when applied to
God. They simply accepted them as they stood. In course of time, as will be
seen, differences of opinion on this point led to some sub-divisions of
this sect.

The Mutazilites were the great opponents of the Sifatians. They rej