agrees with them in denying the divine attributes. He also disagrees with them regarding likeness in names and rulings, and regarding the threat of punishment.

Most people—philosophers, theologians and others—hold that bodies differ in nature. Al-Ash‘arī mentioned this dispute in his Maqālāt.

[Continuation of al-Āmidī’s discussion]

The point here is his admission that those who maintain likeness have no proof. For the following objection was raised: Even if what you have stated invalidates the grounds relied upon by those who maintain difference, what is your evidence for likeness and homogeneity? If you say:

The evidence for likeness is that all substances share the attributes of substance itself: occupying space, receiving accidents, and subsisting independently.

We reply: What prevents substances from differing in their essences, even though they share the attributes you have mentioned? There is nothing to prevent different things from sharing accidents common to them. What you have mentioned could be established as attributes of substance itself only if it were not the case that substances differ and that these are accidents common to them. Yet the possibility that substances differ and that these are accidents