Or else one is compelled, on account of that argument, to embrace corollaries whose falsehood is obvious to both the Revelation and sound reason. Thus Jahm concluded from it that Paradise and Hell will eventually cease to exist, while Abū al-Hudhayl used it to claim that the motions of the people of Paradise will come to an end. Others—such as al-Ashʿarī and those who followed him—were led to say that water, air, and fire all possess taste, color, odor, and the like. Still others, for the same reason and for other considerations, maintained that every accident—taste, color, and so forth—can never endure at all. They needed such an answer when they were pressed with the objection that they had affirmed attributes for Allah while arguing for the origination of bodies by means of their attributes. Their reply was: “The attributes of bodies are accidents, meaning they appear and then disappear; they cannot remain, whereas the attributes of Allah are everlasting.” Yet the overwhelming majority of rational human beings said that this contradicts what is plainly known through the senses.

For the same reason, various schools of speculative theologians—Muʿtazilah and others—went on to deny all of the Lord’s attributes, or at least some of them, because, in their view, the indicator of a thing’s origination is the presence of attributes within it, and they felt the proof must be applied consistently. They therefore held that everything in which an attribute subsists must itself be originated—an idea that is utterly corrupt and misguided. Consequently, they proclaimed the Qur’an to be created, denied that Allah will be seen in the Hereafter, and rejected His being exalted above the Throne, along with similar conclusions accepted by anyone who follows through on the premises of this proof that the Muʿtazilah and their followers made the foundation of their religion.

All of these matters fall under what those people call “the principles of religion,” yet in reality they are not among the principles of the religion that Allah has legislated for His servants.