In Islamic theology, the attributes (ṣifāt, also meaning "property" or "quality"[1]) of God can be defined in one of two ways.
Under divine simplicity, the attributes of God are verbal descriptions understood apophatically (negatively).
Under the now more widespread view, attributes represent ontologically real and distinct properties or qualities that God has.
[7] Not all Muslims accepted this: Al-Maturidi argued that attributes of action are also eternal and substituent in God's essence.
[8] Historically, Islamic debates about the relationship between the essence and attributes of God, and how to interpret or understand God's attributes, have figured in and underlined a variety of questions and debates, including those related to the question of Quranic createdness and anthropomorphism and corporealism.
Islamic debates about the ontological reality of divine attributes post-date Quranic theology[9] and find their background in Christian debates and discussions about the nature of the Trinity, in a manner asserted explicitly by Mu'tazilites as well as earlier Jewish sources, who often mention the two subjects in conjunction with one another.
Basic terminology from philosophical works on the Trinity were carried over (especially in describing an attribute as a maʿnā or ṣifah), as well as the initial list of attributes or properties ascribed to God in Islamic works (including "existence", "generosity", "life", "wisdom"/"knowledge"/"reason", "power" and more).
[10][11] Early Mu'tazilite arguments against the distinct ontological reality of the attributes ultimately come from the writings of the philosopher Philo of Alexandria, mediated by the works of the Church Fathers into the Islamic milieu, including the two arguments that (1) anything eternal itself is a god and (2) that God's oneness and unity excludes any sort of composition, which would include a multiplicity of distinct and real attributes.
Al-Ash'ari defined eight essential attributes (Power, Knowledge, Life, Will, Hearing, Sight, Speech, and Enduringness).
[15] Damien Janos describes it:[17]The Attribute of the Essence, which is variously called ṣifat al-dhāt, ṣifat al-nafs, and ṣifa dhātiyya in the Arabic primary sources, refers to what a thing is in itself, or rather to what a class (jins) of things is in itself (such as atoms).
[21] The Mu'tazila have argued that there is an identity or equivalence between attribute (ṣifa), description (waṣf), and name (ism) of God.
Al-Ash'ari's attributes of revelation and action came to be interpreted figuratively (to avoid anthropomorphic views) by the likes of Al-Juwayni, Al-Ghazali, and Al-Razi[disambiguation needed].
The eight positive attributes of God are that God is (1) eternal (qadim) (2) omnipotent (qadir) (3) omniscient (ʿalim) (4) alive (hayy) (5) independent in action (murid) (6) aware (mudrik) (7) speaks (mutakallim) (8) and Truth (sadiq).
The eight negative attributes are that God is not (1) made of material (murakkab) (2) made of a body (jism) (3) subject to place (makan) (4) dependent (muhtaj) (5) seen (marʾi) (6) subject to change (mahal hawadith) (7) having partners (sharik) (8) incarnated into anything or anybody (hulul).
Mu'tazilite's criticized this phrase as being in violation of basic logic (particularly in violation of the law of excluded middle), but the response from Al-Saffar, a Maturidi theologian, was that God does not operate according to the normal laws of logic.