al-Baqillānī, as well as Abū Isḥāq al-Isfarāʾīnī ⦗1⦘, Abū Bakr ibn Fūrak ⦗2⦘, and Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Mahdī al-Ṭabarī ⦗3⦘—renowned for his writings that elucidate the problematic ḥadiths concerning the divine attributes—and others of their rank.

The second tier, who learned from al-Ashʿarī’s direct students—such as Qāḍī Abū Bakr, the imam of the school, Abū Bakr ibn Fūrak, Abū Isḥāq al-Isfarāʾīnī, Abū ʿAlī ibn Shādhān ⦗4⦘, and many besides them—affirmed the transmitted attributes (al-ṣifāt al-khabariyyah) that appear in the Qur’an and the consecutively reported sunnahs ⦗5⦘: His settling over the Throne, His Face, His Hand, His coming on the Day of Resurrection, and the like. I have examined the statements of every one of those I have named here—as well as others I have not mentioned—and their books, together with the writings of those who quote them, are filled with this affirmation and with refutations of those who reinterpret these attributes and reports, declaring such figurative interpretation to be the path of the Jahmiyyah and the Muʿtazilah. This is precisely ⦗6⦘ what al-Ashʿarī set forth in his book al-Ibānah, which his followers say was his final composition, and in other of his writings—his two books