no single thing can be encompassed by the imagination. He meant that, if it is eternal, it must have attributes, and if it is originated, it must have accidents.”

I say: This statement serves to refute the doctrine of the Jahmiyyah and those like them among the philosophers and the Mu'tazilah, who hold that what is one has no attributes. They are therefore told, “On this view, it would be impossible for anything that is one to exist.” We shall explain, Allah willing, how their position contradicts language, reason, and revelation.

Yet many theologians who affirm the divine attributes, among the followers of al-Ash'arī and others like them, have explained “the One” and divine oneness much as the Mu'tazilah and other Jahmiyyah have. They have not explained them as Ibn Kullāb did, or in any other way, as we shall discuss. However, although their explanation excludes corporeality and resemblance to created beings, they have not accepted that this entails denying the attributes. Rather, they hold that explaining “the One” in this way is compatible with affirming attributes subsisting in Him. This is one of the points of dispute between them and the Mu'tazilah, the philosophers, and other Jahmiyyah: the latter claim that the denial of attributes is included in the meaning of “one,” whereas those who affirm the attributes deny this.