that their leaders themselves did not possess. Thus, they claim to have discerned rational grounds for negation that their leaders had not discerned.

Consider, for example, the arguments advanced by Abū al-Husayn al-Basrī and others like him that their teachers had not previously advanced, and those advanced by Abū Hāshim, Abū ‘Alī al-Jubbā’ī, and ‘Abd al-Jabbār ibn Ahmad that their teachers had not previously advanced.

Indeed, Abū al-Ma‘ālī al-Juwaynī and others who affiliated themselves with al-Ash‘arī included in their books rational arguments denying the attributes reported in revelation that had not been advanced by Ibn Kullāb, al-Ash‘arī, or the leading scholars among their followers, such as al-Qādī Abū Bakr ibn al-Tayyib and others. These scholars all agreed on affirming the attributes reported in revelation, such as the face, the hand, and rising over the Throne.

Al-Ash‘arī did not hold two positions on this matter. Those who transmitted his own position did not dispute that he affirmed the attributes reported in the Quran. His known books contain nothing but affirmation of these attributes and refutation of the position of those who deny them and reinterpret the texts.

In his books, he refuted the Mu‘tazilah—who deny the attributes of the hand, the face, and rising over the Throne, and reinterpret this as dominion—with arguments familiar to those who follow him. No one has transmitted the contrary from him, nor has anyone attributed to him two positions concerning the reinterpretation of these attributes.

His followers, however, hold two positions concerning them:

As for al-Ash‘arī himself and the leading scholars among his followers, their position is to affirm these attributes reported in revelation, refute the rational arguments used to deny them, and reject reinterpretation of the texts concerning them.