he came under attack from groups of Muslim scholars, as well as philosophers such as Ibn Rushd and others, until the following verse was recited about him:

A Yemeni one day, when meeting a man of Yemen;
But an ʿAdnānī, when meeting a man of Maʿadd.

What matters in his statements and those of others is what is supported by evidence. This can only be what accords with the Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, for no sound evidence can ever support contradicting the Messenger.

Similarly, Ibn ʿAqīl’s writings sometimes agree with the Muʿtazilites and Jahmites, and at other times with those who affirm the divine attributes—even the attributes conveyed through revealed reports. What matters in his statements and those of others is what accords with the evidence, which is precisely what accords with what the Messenger brought.

The purpose here is to explain that the leading speculative thinkers demonstrated the unsoundness of the methods used by those who denied the divine attributes or divine elevation on the basis of denying corporeality. Likewise, leading philosophers such as Ibn Sīnā, Abū al-Barakāt, Ibn Rushd, and others demonstrated the unsoundness of the arguments by which speculative theologians among the Jahmites, Muʿtazilites, and Ashʿarīs denied corporeality. Indeed, in Tahāfut al-Tahāfut (The Incoherence of the Incoherence), Ibn Rushd demonstrated the unsoundness of what these theologians relied upon, just as Abū Hāmid demonstrated in Tahāfut (The Incoherence) the unsoundness of what the philosophers relied upon.