Al-Ashʿarī and those who agreed with him followed Jahm in his doctrine of predestination. Although they claim to affirm both divine power (qudrah) and human “acquisition” (kasb), what they affirm has no real substance; in effect, their doctrine is the very doctrine of Jahm, even if they quarrel with him over the terminology of power and acquisition. Consequently, their denial of the wisdom and causal relationships embedded in the Sharīʿah conflicts with the consensus of the early generations and the jurists. One of their basic principles is that Allah neither creates for a purpose nor commands for a purpose; in their view, the Qur’an contains no causative lām when it speaks of His creating or His commanding. Whenever the conversation turns to natural phenomena, they reduce everything to the mere preference of a capable agent without any cause, insisting that every observed correlation is nothing but habit, with no intrinsic connection between the paired events. They may even attribute this notion to the Sunnah.

None of the earlier imams, nor any of the leading scholars of Islam—whether the Four Imams or others—ever voiced such an opinion. On the contrary, the explicit statements transmitted from them refute it, even though some later followers repeated the view, imitating the theologians who had taken it from Jahm.

For the same reason, when these theologians discussed the intellect they refused to regard it as an innate faculty. In their estimation there is no such thing in existence as innate disposition, natural property, or inherent power that can exert an effect or serve as a cause—neither in human ability nor elsewhere. They were therefore compelled to redefine the intellect as a kind of self-evident knowledge and developed their theory along those lines.

By contrast, the explicit testimony of the leading authorities of the religion states that the intellect is indeed an innate faculty, as affirmed by Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, al-Ḥārith al-Muḥāsibī, and others.