these later Ash'arīs, he said: “Chapter on the Statements of al-Ash'arī.

“When the foremost scholars of the Muslim community examined [their doctrine, they found] nothing but sheer denial of the divine attributes, and that the central tenet of their school and the ultimate conclusion of their creed was what the leading heretics had explicitly declared: that He, exalted is He, is in every place and in everything. They excluded neither the belly of a dog, nor the belly of a pig, nor any entrails, seeking to evade affirmation and avoid acknowledging reality; and that, in their view, He is All-Hearing without hearing, All-Seeing without sight, All-Knowing without knowledge, All-Powerful without power—a god with neither a self nor a person