As for the first premise—that whatever is capable of receiving something cannot be devoid of both it and its opposite—most rational thinkers reject it. It is disputed among groups of jurists and speculative thinkers. Among the jurists involved are followers of the four imams, such as the adherents of Ahmad, Mālik, al-Shāfi‘ī, and Abū Hanīfa, as well as others. Those who affirm this premise are committed to holding that every body has a taste, a color, an odor, and likewise the other kinds of accidents. Yet its proponents have no evidence for it.

Abū al-Ma‘ālī offered no argument for this in his well-known book, which he entitled al-Irshād ilā Qawāti‘ al-Adilla (Guidance to Conclusive Proofs). He needed this premise when discussing the temporal origination of the world, since he sought to demonstrate that a body must possess at least one accident from every genus of accidents. He therefore referred the reader to his discussion with the Karrāmiyya. Yet when addressing the Karrāmiyya on this question, he referred the reader to his discussion with the philosophers concerning the temporal origination of the world. He offered no rational proof in his exchanges with either group; he merely argued against the Karrāmiyya on the grounds of their inconsistency.

The argument relied upon by those who say, “Whatever is capable of receiving something cannot be devoid of both it and its opposite,” amounts to this: a body is never devoid of the four spatial states—conjunction, separation, motion, and rest—so the remaining accidents are judged by analogy with these. They also argued that whatever is capable of receiving these accidents cannot be devoid of both an accident and its opposite after it has been characterized by that accident, as the Karrāmiyya concede; the same therefore applies before it is so characterized.