If our opinion be asked about the anthropomorphic attributes of God, whether the Law has denied them as attributes to the Creator or is only silent about them, we would say, that it is evident that the Law is quite silent about them, and their mention in it is quite near to their denial altogether. It has come to be so because the Quran in many verses speaks of His hands and face, and these verses are taken as showing physical attributes which the Creator has bestowed upon the created, just as He has given him the qualities of power, volition and so on--qualities which are common between the Creator and created, except that they are more perfect in the former. On account of this many Muslims believed that the Creator has a body different from all other bodies. Such is the case with the Hanbalites and their many followers. But in my opinion we should follow the path of the Law; and this should neither deny nor try to prove them, and whenever asked by the common people to do so, we should answer with words of God, “There is nothing like him; and it is He who heareth and seeth,”[73] in this way preventing them from questioning. It is so because of three reasons. It is neither near to the first, nor to the second, nor to the third grade. This would be quite clear to you from the method adopted by the Mutakallimun. They say that the proof of the fact that He is not a body is that it has been proved that all bodies are created things. If they are asked to point out the method of proving the latter proposition, they adopt the method, which we have already pointed out, concerning the creation of accidents, that that which cannot be separated from created things is itself created. You have already seen, from what we have said, that this method is not a philosophical one, and had it been so, even then a majority of the common people would not have grasped it. Moreover, whatever these people have said about God, that He is a Self (_Zat_) and divine attributes added to it, proves by itself that He has a body, on account of the denial of creation, rather an argument denying anthropomorphism. This is the first reason why the Law does not speak of these things in clear terms. The second reason is that common people think that all that is existent they can imagine and feel, all else being non-existent to them. So when they are told that there exists One who has no body, their imagination does not work and He becomes almost non-existent to them, particularly so when they are told that He is neither outside our knowledge nor in it, neither above nor below. That is why the sect which believes in anthropomorphism thinks of those who deny it, that they also believe in it; while, on the other hand, the party thinks its opponents to be believing in a number of gods. The third reason is that had the Law denied anthropomorphism altogether there would have arisen many a misgiving about what has been said concerning the Day of Judgment, and other beliefs.