his book The Abridgment on the Principles of Jurisprudence that this question is among those that bewilder the intellect. Abū al-Husayn al-Basrī, the most accomplished of the Muʿtazilīs, suspended judgment on it. We too therefore choose to suspend judgment, and thus have no need to answer the objections they have raised.”

If, then, the most astute of the later Ashʿarīs who deny the attributes known through revelation—their leader, Abū al-Maʿālī—and the most astute of the later Muʿtazilīs