declare—every last one of them (1): “Knowledge is identical with power, and power is identical with hearing and sight.” Al-Ashʿarī says to the Muʿtazilah: “We maintain that the command is the prohibition,” and those who speak of created letters (2) and sounds say: “We hold that the letter yāʾ is the letter sīn,” with many other similar claims.
Should they reply, “In these two cases we do not say that one of the pair is the other, nor that it is something else; rather, they may differ from one standpoint and not from another, or the like,” then the argument raised against them concerning divisibility is exactly parallel to the argument inherent in what they themselves concede. This is a solid line of reasoning from which there is absolutely no escape, and we have set it out in detail in our critique of al-Rāzī’s Taʾsīs (4).
Fifty-third point:
His statement: “Just as reason conceives of a Speaker who is a single entity without parts, and what necessitates His being so is His pre-eternity (5).”
= As for the body, it is the composite formed from two distinct simple substances, and so forth.
Abu al-Hasan al-Ashʿari discusses in Maqālāt al-Islāmiyyīn (vol. 2, pp. 8–13) the diversity of opinions concerning jawhar (substance) and its meaning: whether it is jism (body); whether all jawāhir (substances) belong to a single genus; whether what applies to some applies to all; and whether their existence without ʿarāḍ (accidents) is possible or impossible. Ibn Taymiyya—may Allah have mercy on him—states: “Most of the rational among the Muslim sects and others reject the individual jawhar, even the major kalām sects such as the Najjariyya, the Dharrariyya, the Hashamiyya, the Kalabiyya, many of the Karamiyya, along with most of the falāsifa (philosophers).”
See: Darʾ Taʿārudh al-ʿAql wa-al-Naql, vol. 3, p. 355. Cf. the same source, vol. 4, p. 201. And Bayan Talbīs al-Jahmiyya, vol. 1, pp. 280–286.
(1) The material enclosed in quotation marks is an addition found in manuscripts S and T.
(2) In manuscript T: “al-hurūf” (the letters).
(3) In the original text: “taqūl” (you say). The reading adopted here, which best suits the context, is taken from manuscripts S and T.
(4) See: Ibn Taymiyya, Bayan Talbīs al-Jahmiyya fī Taʾsīs Bidʿihim al-Kalamiyya, vol. 1, p. 378; vol. 2, pp. 238–239.
(5) In manuscripts S and T: “dhālik” (that).