The Attributes of Allah Most High

How are we supposed to understand Divine attributes like "hand" and "eyes"?

Walaikum assalam wa rahmatullah,

I pray that this finds you well, and in the best of health and spirits. May Allah grant you all good and success in this life and the next.

The way of Sunni scholarship regarding these verses can be summarized as follows:

[1] We affirm what Allah affirms, as He affirmed it (and no less or more).

[2] We negate what He negated--namely, any similitude between Him and creation. Thus, Allah is necessarily not characterized by body, form, or those things that entail having a body or form--such as limbs. Rather, Allah is absolute and beyond all limits. He is beyond time and space--for both are His creation.

[3] After this, we consign the meaning to Allah Most High. This was the way of the early Muslims (salaf) and the way preferrred by the later scholars (khalaf) as being safer. The scholars would only engage in interpretation the meanings of such expressions when there was genuine need, in accordance with sound Arabic usage and sound principles of textual interpretation. [Bajuri, Tuhfat al-Murid `ala Jawharat al-Tawhid; Maydani, Sharh al-Tahawiyya; Buti, Kubra al-Yaqiniyyat]

Allah Most High has affirmed this reality Himself in the Qur'an, in Surat Aal-Imran:

"It is He who sent down upon thee the Book, wherein are verses clear in meaning that are the Essence of the Book, and others unclear. As for those in whose hearts is swerving, they follow the unclear, desiring dissension, and desiring its interpretation; and none knows its interpretation, save only God. And those firmly rooted in knowledge say, 'We believe in it; all is from our Lord'; yet none remembers, but men possessed of minds.

Our Lord, make not our hearts to swerve after that Thou hast guided us; and give us mercy from Thee; Thou art the Giver." [Qur'an, 3.7]

And Allah alone gives success.

Faraz Rabbani