other Indian philosophers, such as the Brahmins, do not deny Him. Rather, they maintain that the world came into being and was produced by an agent acting by choice, as the speculative theologians report of them. The same was true of the debates conducted by the Muʿtazilah and others against other kinds of Dahriyyah, including Greek and Persian philosophers, and of their debates with one another in seeking to establish Islam against these opponents. They devised arguments that they called “the foundations of religion,” imagining that the religion of Islam rested upon them.

This is the origin of speculative theology, which the early generations and the imams unanimously condemned, along with its proponents, whom they declared ignorant. If, then, the statements of the early generations and the imams condemning the Jahmiyyah and the speculative theologians are so numerous that only Allah Most High can count them, the root of the matter is that these theologians sought to establish what Muslims have no doubt about: that Allah Most High created the heavens and the earth, and that the world has a Maker and Creator who created it. They also sought to refute those who claim that the world is eternal—either necessary in itself or the effect of a cause that is necessary in itself.

The Dahriyyah hold two positions on this matter. Yet perhaps most speculative theologians, when mentioning the position of the Dahriyyah, mention only those among them who deny the Maker. Thus, a theologian will say, “The Dahriyyah are those who maintain that the world is eternal and deny the Maker.” In their view, everyone who believes in the Maker holds that the world came into being. This is what various groups of speculative theologians have stated, including al-Qādī Abū Bakr ibn al-Bāqillānī, who said in Masāʾil al-Takfīr (Questions of Declaring Unbelief):

“Disagreement falls broadly into two categories: disagreement with those outside the religion who reject the declaration of Allah’s oneness and the affirmation of prophethood—by which I mean the prophethood of Muhammad