and hadith, across all groups. They came to agree on venerating Ahmad and recognizing him as an imam of the Sunnah. Affirmation of the attributes thus became more evident among his followers than among others, owing to their many texts on this subject.

Those who deny the attributes call those who affirm them corporealists and likeners of Allah to His creation.

The author of this book regards those who affirm the attributes—the Ash‘arīs and others like them—as likening Allah to His creation. He holds that their position necessarily entails composition, and that composition is a basis for corporealism.

[Ibn Rushd’s discussion of denying the attributes in The Incoherence of the Incoherence, and Ibn Taymiyyah’s response]

For example, in the book he entitled The Incoherence of the Incoherence, he said:

“Furthermore, the absurdities entailed for the Ash‘arīs by corporealism are greater than those entailed by the premises that led them to corporealism. For if the principle of all that exists is an essence endowed with life, knowledge, power, and will, and these attributes are additional to the essence, while that essence is incorporeal, then there is no difference between the soul and this being except that the soul is in a body, whereas this being is a soul that is not in a body. Whatever is of this description is necessarily composed of an essence and attributes, and every composite necessarily requires someone to compose it. For just as nothing composite can exist of itself, nothing can come into being of itself: bringing into being—which is the act of the one who brings something into being—is nothing other than assembling what is brought into being, and the one who brings it into being is none other than the one who assembles it.