al-Zāghūnī and others. For they could establish that a body is never devoid of accidents only by appealing to spatial states. On closer examination, however, they could establish this only through conjunction and separation. Some of them hold that a spatial state is a privation, while others maintain that spatial states—motion and rest—are necessary only when a body occupies a place. If it occupies no place, it may be devoid of both motion and rest. Various groups maintain this, including those among the Karrāmiyyah who adopted this view.

Thus, this method ultimately came down to conjunction and separation. This was the basis relied upon by Abū al-Ma‘ālī and other Ash‘arīs, as well as Muhammad ibn al-Haysam and other Karrāmīs. It is well known that they could not establish the capacity for conjunction and separation without proving that a body admits of conjunction and separation. This, in turn, rests on its being composed of parts, namely individual atoms. Thus, for these speculative theologians, acknowledging the Creator came to depend upon establishing the existence of the indivisible atom.