‘Then the description by which you affirm the Creator’s existence is the same as the description of a created being’s nonexistence. Why, then, do you not say that He is nonexistent, just as you say that a human being is nonexistent when you describe him in terms of nonexistence?’ They are also told, ‘If a created being’s nonexistence amounts to existence for Him, then, if nonexistence were existence, ignorance would be knowledge and inability would be strength.’”

Abū Bakr ibn Fūrak quoted these statements and others like them from him in the book he devoted to his teachings. He stated there that one of the leading men of his time, whom he named, had wished “that I gather for him the scattered teachings of Abū Muhammad ibn Kullāb, the leading scholar of the devout and leader of discerning scholars, who champions the truth and its followers, elucidates matters through Allah’s proofs, and defends Allah’s religion through the signposts Allah Most High has bestowed upon him along the paths of His religion leading to the truth and His straight path; the sword unsheathed against the people of vain desires and innovation, granted success in following the truth and strengthened in supporting guidance and right judgment.” He praised him greatly.

He said: “This followed my compilation of the scattered teachings of our teacher, al-Ashʿarī.”

He said: “And since the foremost scholar and pioneering leader, Abū Muhammad Abd Allāh ibn Saʿīd, was the one who laid the groundwork for these principles and established these foundations; who, through his fine praise, distinguished the proofs of truth from the specious arguments of falsehood by drawing attention to the methods of theological argument concerning them; who indicated where to connect and separate, combine and distinguish; who unravelled the fabric of falsehoods and exposed the confusion in what they had embellished and disguised”—and he went on at length praising him.