was among the means by which, in their view, they reinforced the doctrine of Ahl al-Sunnah concerning the affirmation of Allah’s attributes. This is the approach of the Kullābīs, the Ash‘arīs, and those jurists of the four schools and others who agree with them.

The second approach is that of those who do not dispute their calling Allah’s attributes accidents, just as they do not dispute their calling the one in whom those attributes subsist a body. Nor do they maintain that accidents cannot persist. Rather, those accidents perceived by the senses as enduring do endure, such as colours and the like, unlike those that do not endure, such as motion. They say: “Suppose that accidents subsist in Him, and suppose that He is a body: no unacceptable consequence necessarily follows from this.” This is the position of various groups who affirm the attributes, including the Karrāmīs, the Shī‘ah, and those jurists and others who agree with them.

The second approach is neither to say that His attributes are accidents nor to say that they are not accidents, just as they neither say that He is a body nor that He is not a body. All of this is a blameworthy innovation according to the early generations of the Muslim community and its leading scholars. Moreover, if the dispute concerns meaning, the true meaning must be affirmed, not the false one. Those who deny these descriptions should therefore ask those who affirm them what they intend by them. If they affirm both truth and falsehood, the truth is accepted, but not the falsehood. Likewise, if those who deny these descriptions deny what is true