were leading figures before Aristotle maintained that the world originated through newly occurring causes. They affirmed this principle either explicitly or by implication. Several of their later thinkers did likewise, including Abū al-Barakāt al-Baghdādī, the author of al-Muʿtabar. This is also the position adopted by a group of speculative thinkers, including al-Athīr al-Abharī and others.

The position he reported from Abū al-Husayn al-Basrī was also held by several others before and after Abū al-Husayn, including Hishām and others like him. Ibn ʿAqīl adopts Abū al-Husayn’s position, which expresses the meaning of the position of the early generations. Al-Rāzī inclines toward Abū al-Husayn’s position—indeed, toward going further than he did—as he mentions in al-Matālib al-ʿĀliyah; in fact, he argues in its support. His statement that the Karrāmiyyah held all His names to be eternal refers to the meanings of His names: that by virtue of which He merits those names, such as His being Creator and Provider.

As for the names themselves, they are part of His speech, and according to them His speech is newly occurring and subsists in His essence. They hold it impossible for speech or names to have existed from eternity, since that would entail either a beginningless succession of newly occurring things or the eternity of a particular utterance, both of which they regard as untenable. His account of the Karrāmiyyah as saying that the creation of will and speech within His essence rests on eternal power, while the creation of what exists within created beings rests on