ABSTRACT
Introduction Most of the pious leaders of the early community maintained eternal attributes of God, such as knowledge, power, life, will, hearing, seeing, speech, majesty,glory,generosity, beneficence, honour, grandeur. Moreover they did not differentiate between essential and operative attributes, but spoke of both in the same way. They also believed in such Qur'ānic descriptives as 'two hands' and 'a face'. They did not interpret them, but simply said, 'These attributes have been mentioned in the Qur'ān, and, therefore, we shall call them revealed attributes.' As the Mu'tazilites deny the attributes and the early leaders, salaf, maintain them, the latter are called Sifātīya (Attributists), but the Mu'tazilites Mu'attila (Strippers). Some of the early leaders so exaggerate the existence of attributes that they make them analogous to the attributes of created things. Others restrict themselves to operative attributes.
