befitting Him, while a created being is described in a manner befitting it. Although the same term may be used, attributing it to Allah gives it a specific, qualified meaning that rules out any likeness to creation.

What Shaykh Abū ‘Alī mentioned—that the Sufis differ from the Mu‘tazilah—is a matter of agreement. The foundational principles of the Sufis are incompatible with the denial of the divine attributes. Indeed, they are the furthest of people from the Mu‘tazilite position concerning the attributes and divine decree.

It is well known that the method of speculative theology involving substances and accidents, as applied to the proofs and questions of the foundations of religion, is the method followed by the Mu‘tazilah. The speculative theologians among those who affirm the divine attributes, such as the Ash‘arīs and others, adopted it from them. This is the method to which Abū al-Qāsim referred.

It is thus clear that these Sufis oppose this method of speculative theology, some aspects of which Abū al-Qāsim mentioned. Abū al-Qāsim also wrote in his biography of Shaykh Abū al-Hasan ibn al-Sā’igh, who lived at the same time as Ibn al-Kātib, in the year 330 AH: “He was one of the eminent shaykhs.” He further related: “Abū ‘Uthmān al-Maghribī said, ‘I have never seen