Back to search

What is the response to one who claims the impermissibility of using terms not used by the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, such as "attributes of Allah," "creed," "Basmalah" before surahs, and the names of some of them?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

A Muslim must seek knowledge and piety in those from whom he learns his religion. Anyone who deviates from what the scholars have established and criticizes the earlier imams is not worthy of knowledge. A person speaking about knowledge should not abandon established terminology, because violating this is either ignorance or an intention to obscure. An example of this is describing a weak hadith as "hasan" (good) linguistically. The expressions "Attributes" (الصفات) and "Creed" (العقيدة) are found in the texts and in the words of the Salaf. So, the expression "Attributes" for what is reported about Allah is found in the texts, such as calling Surat Al-Ikhlas "the Description of the Most Merciful" (صفة الرحمن). And the expression "Creed" for what the heart is bound by came in the Sunnah, such as the hadith of Zayd ibn Thabit: "No Muslim's heart holds firmly to three qualities except that he will enter Paradise." So, whoever denies these two terms is mistaken. The statement that the Basmalah is not part of the Quran is weak, and the names of the Quranic surahs are divinely ordained (tawqifiyyah).

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

Read the full answer on Ftawy