or co-located is greater than their recognition that anything that exists must be capable of being seen. This being so, it becomes clear that the inferential method adopted by Ibn al-Haysam and others concerning Allah’s being above creation is stronger than the method adopted by al-Ashʿarī and others—and by Ibn al-Haysam himself—on the specific question of seeing Allah. Both men used their respective methods to defend what the Quran and Sunnah affirm and what the early generations of the Muslim community unanimously agreed upon.

All the objections al-Rāzī raised against this method of Ibn al-Haysam are, in fact, objections to the rational principles employed by the leading Ashʿarī scholars and others. Thus, the arguments advanced by him, Ibn Fūrak, and others like them undermine the foundations of their own associates and leading scholars more than they undermine the foundations put forward by the Karrāmiyyah and others concerning the Throne.

This is clear to anyone with even a little experience of examining these matters, and to anyone familiar with what he relied upon