THE CREED OF THE AHL AS-SUNNA (II)

“The scholars of the Ahl as-Sunna explain the meaning of the Kalimat at-tawhîd as follows: Men were nonexistent. They were created later. They have one Creator. He is the One Who has created everything. The Creator is One. He does not have a partner or a likeness. There is not another creator. He has been ever-existent; His existence did not have a beginning. He will be ever-existent; there is no end to His existence. He will not cease to exist. His existence is always necessary. His nonexistence is impossible. His existence is of Himself. He does not need any means. There is nothing that will not need Him. He is the One Who creates everything and makes it go on existing. He is not material or a thing. He is not at a place or in any substance. He does not have a shape and cannot be measured. It cannot be asked how He is; when we say ‘He,’ none of the things which come to our mind or which we can imagine is He. He is unlike these things. All of them are His creatures. He is not like His creatures. He is the Creator of everything that comes to mind and of every illusion and of every delusion. He is not above, below, or at one side. He does not have a place. Every being is below the ’Arsh. And the ’Arsh is under His Power, under His Omnipotence. He is above the ’Arsh. Yet this does not mean that the ’Arsh carries Him. The ’Arsh exists with His Favour and in His Omnipotence. Now He is the same as He was in eternity, in eternal past. He will always be the same in the everlasting future as He had been before creating the ‘Arsh. No change occurs in Him.