but they disagree about what subsists in the Lord’s essence. This resembles their disagreement concerning His rising over and similar matters: is it an effect that the Lord produces in created things without anything subsisting in Him, or does something subsist in Him? These are the two positions.

The Kullābīs and Mu‘tazilīs deny that anything of this kind subsists in the Lord, whereas most adherents of hadith and many theologians allow it. As for relations and connections, all agree that these arise anew.

Ibn ‘Aqīl calls these relations and connections “states.” Perhaps he gave them this name just as others describe His being knowing and powerful as a state grounded in knowledge and power. This is the approach of al-Qādī Abū Bakr and those who agree with him, such as al-Qādī Abū Ya‘lā, Ibn ‘Aqīl, and others. Following Abū Hāshim, they maintain that a state is neither existent nor nonexistent; on their account, the same applies to these relations and connections.

Alternatively, Ibn ‘Aqīl may have likened these relations and connections to the states affirmed by Abū Hāshim, which he regards as neither existent nor nonexistent, treating these relations and connections in the same way.

The discussions of this question among scholars of hadith, Quranic exegesis, theology, and others are well known. Thus, a number of theologians—including Hishām ibn al-Hakam, al-Jahm, Abū al-Husayn al-Basrī, al-Rāzī, and others—came to affirm things that arise anew.

Discussion of this relates to what Allah has mentioned in several places in the Quran, such as His saying:

“We appointed the direction of prayer you formerly faced only so that We might know who would follow the Messenger and who would turn back on his heels.” [Al-Baqarah: 143]