and the Jahmiyyah agree with these people in their negation. As for the innovators who liken Allah to creation and ascribe a body to Him, their excess lies in affirmation. Yet the unbelief, deviation, and corruption involved in that negation are greater than those involved in excessive affirmation, as we have explained elsewhere.

Their condemnation of this was not merely a matter of terminology, nor merely an objection to expressing a meaning in terms for which there was no need. Rather, it was because such language contains false meanings. We shall relate some of their statements on this throughout this book, when discussing the method upon which the Muʿtazilah and those who follow their path rely: inferring that the world came into being from the fact that bodies came into being. They argued for the latter on the grounds that accidents arise in some bodies and that bodies cannot be devoid of accidents. This method is the foundation of the speculative theology condemned by the early generations and the imams.

They discussed this at length from two perspectives.

The first:

Its proponents made it the foundation of religion, even claiming that Allah cannot be known, nor His Messenger believed, except through this method. Thus, for them, this method became the foundation of religion, the basis of knowledge, and the bedrock of faith: neither faith, nor religion, nor knowledge of the Maker could be attained without it. Upholding its implications and everything it contains became their foremost concern. But discussing that is not our purpose here; rather, what concerns us is the following.