that a self-subsisting being exists that is not a body is like the claim that a self-subsisting being exists in which no attribute inheres.” For the Mu'tazilah maintain that the Creator, exalted is He, subsists in Himself, yet cannot be a locus for attributes or temporally originated events. They said, “These two claims are like claiming that a self-subsisting being exists that is neither separate from nor distinguishable from anything else.” They said, “Affirming a self-subsisting being that is neither a body nor a bearer of attributes is like affirming a self-subsisting being that is neither living nor dead, neither knowing nor ignorant, neither capable nor incapable—as some heretics and philosophers maintain.”

All this denies what reason knows to be necessarily true and contradicts self-evident knowledge and sensory perception. The imams have always described the Jahmiyyah as contradicting reason, and have maintained that reason recognizes that what they describe is nonexistence, not existence. Hence, in their view, those who deny corporealism are counted among the corporealists, because they agree with them on the basic principle of affirmation, even if they differ from them on some details.

That being so, this basis that he ascribed to those who supplicate, in earlier and later generations—namely, recourse to rational analogy, which is