Accordingly, the Jahmiyyah were named after him, and they denied both the divine names and the attributes. The Muʿtazilah and others followed their lead, denying the attributes while admitting the names, and a group of philosophers who traced themselves back to Aristotle agreed with them.

The Ḥulūliyyah, however, maintained that whatever is ascribed to Allah may itself be one of His attributes even though it is separate from Him. Indeed, they went so far as to declare, “It is eternal, without beginning.” Thus they said that the spirit of Allah is eternal, without beginning—an attribute of Allah—until many of them even asserted that the spirits of the children of Adam are themselves eternal, without beginning, and an attribute of Allah. They further claimed that the sounds people hear from the mouths of Qur’an reciters and the very ink in the written codices are eternal without beginning and constitute an attribute of Allah.

The more sophisticated among them added that His anger, pleasure, love, hatred, and His will concerning what He creates are all eternal without beginning and are an attribute of Allah; that His speech which Moses heard is eternal without beginning; and that He has always been pleased and loving toward those whom He knew would obey Him before they were created and has always been angry and wrathful with those whom He knew would disbelieve before they were created, and He has never ceased