Al-Muʿtazila, one of the foremost imams of their school referred to in this discipline. Ibn Hajar said of him: “He is not reliable in transmission.” He authored several works, among them Sharḥ al-Uṣūl al-Khamsa (Commentary on the Five Principles). He died in Baghdad in 436 AH. See: Wafayāt al-Aʿyān by Ibn Khallikān, 4:271; Lisān al-Mīzān by Ibn Ḥajar, 5:298; Al-Aʿlām by al-Zarkalī, 7:161. (1) Abū al-Ḥusayn composed Kitāb al-Muʿtamad, a substantial treatise from which al-Rāzī drew his Kitāb al-Maḥṣūl. See: Wafayāt al-Aʿyān, 4:271. In al-Maḥṣūl 1/1:235–236 (ed. Taha Jabir Fiāḍ), al-Rāzī addresses the nature of speech (kalam), stating: “Know that the term kalam among us scholars is used ambiguously to denote both the concept residing in the soul and the audible, discrete sounds.” He then elaborates on the first category in his work Maḥṣal Afkār al-Mutaqaddimīn wa-al-Muta’akhkhirīn. For a detailed study see Taha ʿAbd al-Raʾūf, pp. 172–174, where he devotes a section to the question, saying: “The Muslims agree in ascribing the term mutakallim (Speaker) to God Almighty, but they differ as to its meaning….” He goes on to record his followers’ proof that God speaks by way of kalam al-nafs (speech of the soul), not by speech constituted of letters and sounds, and he refutes the Muʿtazila for denying this essence. (2) The text between these brackets is missing in the manuscript. (3) In the manuscript: “li’iṭlāq” (“for the generality”).