with those who agree with them that He is a body. That being so, it is clear that their refusal to affirm this is not merely due to dissimulation and fear; rather, it reflects a conviction they hold, and they deny parts and portions. If someone says, “They are contradicting themselves, and their position entails affirming parts and portions,” then at most they are like other groups whose positions are said to entail views they do not themselves affirm.

This is comparable to the Kullābiyya—the leading and early Ashʿarīs—holding the Muʿtazila’s position, and the later Ashʿarīs being committed by implication to affirming that He is a body, although they do not affirm this. Likewise, those who deny that Allah can be seen, and many who affirm it, say that anyone who affirms it is committed to corporealism, even if he does not profess it.

The second point is that the implications of denying that He is a body are graver than those of affirming it. For someone who denies this is said to be committed to the conclusions that Allah cannot be seen, that Allah does not speak, that the Quran is created, that Allah is not upon the Throne, and that no attribute subsists in Him. It is further said that his affirmation of sphericity, of Allah’s speech being uncreated, of Allah Most High being upon the Throne, and of other such matters is merely dissimulation and an attempt to appease the adherents of the Sunnah and hadith. Many Ashʿarīs and others say this, going so far as to claim that al-Ashʿarī only