Abū al-Maʿālī adopted the position chosen by Qādī Abū Bakr and others like him. Groups among the followers of Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, Ahmad, and others, such as Qādī Abū Yaʿlā, share this position. They held that two like entities are any two existing things possessing the same intrinsic attributes. Neither can possess an intrinsic attribute absent from the other. One may, however, actually possess an attribute arising from an inhering quality that the other does not possess, while a like attribute remains possible for its counterpart. This is illustrated by substances, which are alike because their intrinsic attributes are the same.

For no substance, to the exclusion of another, possesses the attributes of occupying space, receiving accidents, and subsisting in its own right. Some substances may possess particular kinds of accidents, the like of which are possible in all other substances. A thing may also share existence with something unlike it—for example, the two may both be accidents or colours—contrary to the view of the Bātiniyyah.

They said that two things cannot be alike in one respect and different in another, for if we say: two like entities