What al-Ash‘arī stated initially rests on this principle. In this, he agrees with those among the Mu‘tazilah and others who upheld it. This is one of the remnants of their rational principles that he retained after abandoning their doctrine and demonstrating the falsity of the positions through which they openly opposed the people of the Sunnah and the community.

The majority of rational people of all kinds—speculative thinkers, philosophers, and others—say:

“This is false. Bodies are transformed into other bodies, as jurists, physicians, and others maintain, and as observation attests. What comes into being is the animals and plants themselves, not merely their attributes.” They deny that bodies are composed of indivisible atoms.

Those who deny the indivisible atom include most schools of speculative theology, such as the Najjāriyyah, Dirāriyyah, Hishāmiyyah, Kullābiyyah, and a group among the Karrāmiyyah, along with the majority of philosophers.

A group of philosophers and others said:

“Rather, bodies that are transformed into one another share an underlying matter: a common material substratum that itself persists unchanged. Only the form changes, and that underlying matter is an intelligible substance.”