and to that very opinion Abū al-Maʿālī reverted toward the end of his life (1).
As for those who affirm the existence of ḥāl (state), al-Rāzī suspended judgment; he would not declare the position either possible or impossible (2), and we have already quoted his exact words on the matter. This is, in fact, an admission (3) from him that the doctrine in question is—according to their own leading authorities who deny ḥāl—rationally impossible; while among those of them who affirm ḥāl (4) we still do not know whether it is possible or impossible.
[And on either supposition we still have no grounds for thinking it possible. Thus it is plain that they possess no proof even for the bare possibility] (5) of their claim that Allah’s speech is a single, indivisible meaning (6), much less any proof that such is actually the case. Not everything the mind can conceive necessarily corresponds to reality: if reason allows that speech might be one single attribute and also allows that it might consist of multiple attributes, then some additional evidence must decide between the two. How much more pressing is the need for proof when people have told them outright that the claim is impossible—yet they have produced no evidence at all to show that it is even possible.