like a pure ingot, gleaming like a pearl that is round on all sides. He has colour, taste, smell, and a tactile quality. His colour is His taste, His smell, and His tactile quality, and He Himself is colour. Hishām did not specify any colour or taste distinct from Him. He also held that He moves and rests, stands and sits.”

He said: “It is related that he said, ‘He is a body unlike other bodies,’ meaning that He is something that exists.”

He said: “It is reported of one of the corporealists that he affirmed the Creator to be mutakawwin (having come into being), but refused to ascribe to Him taste, smell, or a tactile quality, or to describe Him as long, broad, or deep. He claimed that He has been in motion since He brought creation into being.”

He said: “Others said that the Creator is a body, but denied that He is characterized by colour, taste, smell, a tactile quality, or anything else Hishām ascribed to Him. They nevertheless maintained that He is upon the Throne, in contact with it alone.”

He also said, regarding the Shia’s disagreements over corporealism, that they form six sects: