Belief in Allah

In the original text he said: “He is Qadeem (i.e., Ancient) without a beginning and Da'im (i.e., everlasting) without an end”. He wanted to make it clear to us that Allah is above what He has created, for He, glory be to Him, created time, and time does not contain Him, the same can be said about the creation of space, i.e., space does not contain Him, and he mentioned here that Allah rather preceded time. Also, He will last after the end of time without an end. This is the meaning that he wanted to express using the jargon of Mutakallimūn, vis. the infinity of time in the past and in the future. However, this is a departure from what was mentioned in the authentic texts regarding the infinity of time from two aspects. Firstly, it is because the eternity of Allah in time means: Allah is not describable by any beginning instant of time, nor that He will end at another instant of time; since time is constrained by its nature of creation, and Allah has existed before His creation, and He, glory be to Him, will continue to exist without end. This meaning is usually expressed by theologians and people from different faiths in various ways

It is well known that the Qur’anic expression that is also encountered in Sunnah is the right expression to use,i.e., it is better to say: “He is the First and the Last, the Ascendant and the Intimate, and He is, of all things, Knowing” (Al-Hadid: 3). His saying, glory be to Him: “the First and the Last” is the meaning that was intended by Imam al-Tahawi (the author), which was explicitly mentioned by the Prophet -Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam- in his supplication where he used to say: “O Allah, You are The First so there is nothing before You and You are The Last so there is nothing after You” [Narrated by Muslim (2713), Abu Dawood (5001), Al-Tirmidhi (2300), and Ahmad (381/2) on the authority of Abu Hurairah.]. There is no time before or after Him, also nothing existed or will exist before or after Him, respectively. And these two names (the First) and (the Last) indicate that He, Glory be to Him, is “Ancient – as mentioned – without beginning), and that He is (perpetual – Glory be to Him – without end).

The Qur’anic and the Sunnah description of Allah’s attributes is the most complete and accurate description, it is rather the only one correct description.

Note that the Mutakallimun used the word (Ancient) in a different context than what is usually used for. They usually mean time-independent ancientness and time-independent everlasting.

Therefore, the author clarified it by saying: “Ancient without a beginning”; because being ahead of others can mean, by logical reasoning, that He has a known beginning or a particular starting point in time - Glory be to Him, but this is wrong with respect to Allah’s existence, we neither have such knowledge nor our minds can imagine his existence.

It is known that the language, in the early stage, is associated with tangible things that the Arabs saw or knew, and that is why the term “Ancient” includes ancient creatures as well. Therefore, we avoid describing Allah with such a word.

In summary, “Ancient without a beginning” refers to what is known as Azaliyyah (Arabic: الأزلية), i.e., eternity of Allah, and His saying: “Everlasting without an end” refers to what is known as Abadiyyah (Arabic: الأبدية), i.e., His perpetuation. According to the Mutakallimun, the Ash'aris and Mu’tazilah; however, eternity is only associated with His entity not with His attributes (this will be discussed in details later).

Remark: note that despite Imam at-Tahawi being from Ahlu us-Sunnah wal-Jama’ah he rather used their expression.

Issue #1 is on the name of Qadeem (Arabic: القديم), i.e., the Ancient:

The inclusion of this name in the names of Allah is not permissible, and that is for several reasons:

First and foremost, it is because of Rule 1 that says “never go beyond the Qur’an and the hadith, i.e., the Sunnah”. And when this rule is applied, in the current situation, this new name, i.e., “the Ancient” becomes a transgression of the texts.

Secondly, this name is neutral and can be used to describe good qualities as well as bad ones and when it comes to the names of Allah, neutral names are not sufficient.

Thirdly, Allah is not supplicated with such a name. For instance, we do not supplicate Allah by saying: “O the Ancient provide me!”; and therefore, it is not a name since names are words or a set of words by which an entity is known, addressed, or referred to. Allah - سبحانه و تعالى - said: “And (all) the Most Beautiful Names belong to Allah, so call on Him by them” [Al-Araf, 7vs180].

A name is said to be one of the beautiful names of Allah if the following three conditions are met:

The first condition: that it was mentioned in the Qur’an and/or in the Sunnah.

The second condition: it has to be a name with which we can supplicate Allah.

The third condition: It must refer to an absolute complete, unconditional and unreserved praise. This condition is built on top of another rule of Ahl al-Sunnah wa’l-Jamaa’ah regarding names and attributes, which is...

This rule allows us to describe Allah by “Ancient or eternal without a beginning”, it is okay because it contains a correct meaning from the general knowledge perspective.

As for the description, describing Allah by Ancientness, remember this is narrower set now!. Because there must be evidence before we include such an attribute to the set of other attributes. The same applies to the set of names, i.e., calling Allah “O the Ancient!”. This is even narrower than attributes, remember it is necessary to meet all the three conditions before it can be used as a name!, but the three conditions are not met for this particular name as well as other names like “the maker”, “the speaker”...etc.

Rule 3: Every name has a derived attribute. The converse is not true.

Rule 4: Attributes that are derived from names have to be complete, unreserved and unconditional.

Issue #3:

The eternity of Allah and His perpetuation is associated both with His entity and His attributes.