He said, “Abū al-Qāsim al-Nasrābādhī was the leading shaykh of his time.”

I say: These words of al-Nasrābādhī imply that Allah truly possesses attributes of action, such as creating and providing, just as He truly possesses attributes of the essence, such as knowledge and power. This is what Abū Bakr Muhammad ibn Ishāq al-Kalābādhī reported as the position of the Sufis in his book al-Taʿarruf. It is also the position of the majority of jurists, the scholars of hadith, and groups among the speculative theologians. It is not the position of the Ashʿarīs, whose path Abū al-Qāsim al-Qushayrī followed.

He said: In their view, creating and providing are identical with what is created, and He is not entitled to be called the Creator, the Resurrector, or the Inheritor until these effects come into existence. The dispute concerns whether action is an attribute of Allah and whether He has been described by names denoting actions from eternity. We have discussed these two questions at length in their proper place.

He also said: I heard Imam Abū Ishāq al-Isfarāyīnī say, “When I returned from Baghdad, I was teaching in the congregational mosque of Nishapur on the question of the spirit, explaining the position that it is created. Abū al-Qāsim al-Nasrābādhī was sitting