he disagreed with him on many issues. Abū al-Maʿālī frequently studied Abū Hāshim’s books. He and others thus began to follow through on the principles on which their predecessors had agreed with the Muʿtazilah. They concluded that these necessarily entailed denying that Allah is above the Throne, and openly proclaimed this denial in agreement with the Muʿtazilah. Disagreement with the Muʿtazilah on this point had not been among the well-known issues of dispute, for the reasons explained earlier.

The questions of seeing Allah and the Quran, however, were defining issues for the two schools. They therefore made a point of disputing with the Muʿtazilah over seeing Allah, while conceding to them the denial that Allah is above