For this reason, they said: “If Allah’s speech were created, the speaker would be the subject in which it was created.”

Their leading scholars and the majority of them consistently applied this principle to the attributes of action. Others, such as al-Ash‘arī and those like him, drew a distinction between the two that left their position contradictory in the eyes of most people, both those who affirm the attributes and those who deny them.

As for those who say, “He knows, but not through knowledge subsisting in Him; He wills, but not through a will subsisting in Him; and He speaks, but not through speech subsisting in Him”—this is the position of the Jahmiyyah, who deny the attributes, and those Mu‘tazilites who agree with them.

This al-Tūsī and others like him are heretical, philosophizing Jahmiyyah who deny the attributes. His denial of the attributes is worse than that of the Mu‘tazilites and others. Likewise, Ibn Sīnā and others like him are followers of the heretical deniers.

This al-Tūsī was among the supporters of the heretics at Alamūt, then became one of the supporters of the polytheistic Turks when they seized control of the lands.

The same applies to Ibn Sīnā. In his account of his life, as transmitted by his companions, he related that his father was from Balkh and that, in the days of Nūh ibn Mansūr, his father married a woman from a village near Bukhara. Ibn Sīnā was born there, and they later moved to Bukhara.