or on all sides.” This view has also been held by various groups of scholars of speculative theology, jurists, and others, and al-Ash‘arī reported it from various groups in al-Maqālāt.

When they are told, “This is impossible,” they reply, “Our opponents’ position is more manifestly impossible.”

When they are told, “Your position entails that He intermingles with the world,” they reply:

“Some of our opponents say that He Himself is in every place, while others deny this. We can say what either group says; and if they claim that this is possible without intermingling, we make the same claim.”

[The third response]

The position of the early generations and the imams, and of scholars of hadith, speculative theology, jurisprudence, and Sufism who say:

“He has a limit known only to Him.”

When they are told, “Everything finite on all sides could have existed with a greater or smaller magnitude than it actually has, and its restriction to that magnitude requires a separate determiner,” they reject this, as mentioned earlier, and say:

“We do not concede that everything restricted to a particular magnitude requires a determiner separate from it. Nor do we concede that any distinctive characteristic established for the Necessary Existent could be otherwise.”