Isma‘il ibn Qutayba said the following. “I and ‘Isa ibn al-Shalqan went to see Imam abu ‘Abdallah (a.s.). The Imam said ‘It is strange that a group of people ascribe to Amirul Mu’minin certain things that he had never said. Amirul Mu’minin addressed people in Kufa in the following words. “All praise is due to Allah Who inspired His servants with His praise and natured them in a way that would give them the desire to acknowledge His Lordship. It is He, Who guides people through His creation to His Own existence and His creatures are evidence of His eternity. The fact that His creatures are similar is evidence that there is nothing similar to Him. His signs are evidence of His great power. His Own-self prohibits acceptance of descriptions and so are His being seen with the eyes and His being comprehended in the imaginations. There is no time limit for His being in existence and there is no final destination for Him. Awareness can not contain Him and coverings can not cover Him. The curtain between Him and His creatures is His creating them. It is because of being impossible for Him what is possible in the essence of the creatures and because of what may be possible in their case is impossible in His case. It is also because of the difference between the Creator and the created, the limited and the unlimited and the Lord and the worshippers. He is One without being a unit of a particular kind. He is the Creator but not terms of motion. He is seeing but not by means of tools. He is hearing but not with distinguishing instruments. He observes but not by means of touching. He is hidden but not with covering. He is clearly manifest but not with lapse due to distance. His eternity is beyond the reach of thinking and a stop for the aims of the intelligence. His reality has worn out the ability of sight and His Own-self has uprooted the (spreading) vines of imaginations. Whoever tries to describe Allah has thought of Him as limited and whoever considers Him limited he has enumerated Him and whoever enumerates Him he has invalidated His eternity. Whoever asks where is He, he has considered Him as having an end. Whoever says on what is He, he has considered Him as distanced. Whoever says wherein is He, he has considered Him contained in some thing.”