nor power, nor speech, nor will. Rather, in his view, there is nothing but the Essence devoid of attributes and the created things separate from it, as the Jahmiyya among the Mu‘tazila and others maintain.

Abd al-Azīz therefore presented two rational arguments against him:

The first: If Allah’s speech is created, yet He did not create it in anything other than Himself, nor as something existing independently, it must follow that it was created within Allah Himself. This is false.

The second: Allah created the things separate from Him by means of something uncreated: either His power—as Bishr acknowledged—or His act, command, and will—as Abd al-Azīz maintained.

On either account, it is established that, before created things existed, there were attributes that were uncreated. Thus, the fundamental position of Bishr and the Jahmiyya is refuted: that Allah has no attributes, and that everything other than the bare Essence is created. It also becomes clear that uncreated qualities subsist in the Essence.

This is the argument of those who affirm the divine attributes and maintain that the Quran is Allah’s uncreated speech against those who deny the attributes and hold that the Quran is created. For everyone who denies the attributes is bound to hold that the Quran is created.

There remains the discussion among those who affirm the attributes concerning what subsists in His Essence: can any of it be subject to His will and power, or not? Does Abd al-Azīz hold that something subject to His will and power may subsist in His Essence? Or does he hold that whatever is willed and subject to His power must be separate from Him and created, thus equating what is subject to His power with what is created? These are, fundamentally, two well-known positions reported by al-Hārith al-Muhāsibī and others from Ahl al-Sunnah, as cited earlier.

This second view is that of Ibn Kullāb, al-Ash‘arī, and those who agree with them among