An Examination of Hadiths Concerning the Negation of Attributes from God and their Significance

Some of the most important issues in Islamic philosophy and kalam regarding divine attributes go back to the existence and the nature of these attributes and their relations with God. These issues, sometimes classified under 'attribute-monotheism' are very important in religious ontology, and has, at some point in the history, led to controversies about monotheism and polytheism among Muslim thinkers. Such issues are called ontological problems of divine attributes. In this paper we seek to show that hadiths concerning the negation of attributes from God signify that divine attributes are conceived as created entities. In other words, 'attribute's have been used in these hadiths to mean 'signs', and God's being attributed means that God has made such creatures as his attributes, that is, signs, and no more. Therefore, all attributes are created entities, and they are things with which God or Allah is signified.