weth all
things." (Sura xliv. 5). "No vision taketh in Him, but He taketh in all
vision." (Sura vi. 103).

The use of the terms sitting, rising, &c., hands, face, eyes, and so on,
gave rise as I have shown to several sub-divisions of the Sifatians.
Al-Ghazzali says: "He sits upon His throne after that manner which He has
Himself described and in that sense which He Himself means, which is a
sitting far remote from any notion of contact or resting upon, or local
situation." This is the Ash'arian idea, but between the Ash'arians and
those who fell into the error of the {135} Mujassimians,[120] there was
another school. The followers of Imam Ibn Hanbal say that such words
represent the attributes existing in God. The words "God sits on His
throne" mean that He has the power of sitting. Thus, they say, "We keep the
literal meaning of the words, we allow no figurative interpretation. To do
so is to introduce a dangerous principle of interpretation, for the
negation of the apparent sense of a passage may tend to weaken the
authority of revelation. At the same time we do not pretend to explain the
act, for it is written: 'There is none like unto Him.' (Sura cxii.) 'Nought
is there like Him.' (Sura xlii. 9.) 'Unworthy the estimate they form of
God.'" (Sura xxii. 73.) To prove that God occupies a place they produce the
following Tradition: "Ibn-al-Hakim wished to give liberty to a female slave
Saouda and consulted the Prophet about it. Muhammad said to her, 'Where is
God?' 'In heaven,' she replied. 'Set her at liberty, she is a true
believer.'" Not, say the Commentators, because she believed that God
occupied a place but because she took the words in their literal
signification. The Shi'ahs consider it wrong to attribute to God movement,
quiescence, &c, for these imply the possession of a body. They hold, too,
in opposition to the orthodox that God will never be seen, for that which
is seen is limited by space.

The seventh attribute--speech--has been fruitful of a very long and
important controversy connected with the nature of the Quran, for the word
"Kalam" means not mere speech, but revelation and every other mode of
communicating intelligence. Al-Ghazzali says:--

"He doth speak, command, forbid, promise, and threaten by an eternal
ancient word, subsisting in His essence. Neither is it like to the word
of the creatures, nor doth it consist in a voice arising from the
commotion of the air and the collision