the acts and attributes of Allah Most High runs counter to sensory perception and imagination. He then argues for this on the grounds that Allah acted after not having acted, without anything coming into being within His essence. Yet he knows that the doctrine that temporal events occur within His essence—exalted and holy is He—is the hallmark of the Karrāmiyyah, and that they agree on this. This is like saying of the Muʿtazilah: “They have agreed with us that Allah Most High brings His servants’ acts into being without any action on their part.”

Moreover, this doctrine is the position of most scholars of hadith—indeed, of the leading authorities in hadith. It is what they transmitted from the early generations of the Muslim community and its leading scholars, and from many jurists and Sufis, or most of them. Among those who hold it are adherents of the four schools—the Hanafīs, Mālikīs, Shāfiʿīs, and Hanbalīs—whose numbers Allah Most High alone can count.

He himself has stated in several places in his books that the occurrence of temporal events within His essence is a necessary implication of the positions of all schools, even the Muʿtazilah and the philosophers, and he reported this from