Real, yet Neither Identical to God nor Separate From Him

Ashari theology affirms that God's knowledge, power, life and speech are real attributes rather than empty names for a single undivided essence, while at the same time refusing to treat them as separate eternal things existing alongside God's essence, a formula stated as neither He nor other than He. Islamic Creeds: A Selection presents the wording as a deliberate compromise position, holding a middle course between the Mutazili theologians, who denied that God possesses attributes distinct from His essence at all, treating talk of divine attributes as merely figurative, and a position the Asharis judged to compromise divine oneness by multiplying eternal realities alongside God. The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition records that this formula became, through the Ashari school's wide adoption across the Sunni world, one of the most consequential settlements in the history of Islamic theology, since it allowed scripture's frequent references to God's knowing, willing and speaking to be read as straightforwardly true statements rather than as metaphor requiring reinterpretation, without conceding the philosophical difficulties the Mutazila had raised against a crude multiplication of divine eternals.