most rational human beings, let alone something that all speakers of the language can be reported to have intended by the words jasīm (large-bodied) and ajsam (larger-bodied). A word’s commonly understood meaning cannot refer to something understood by only a few people. Belief in indivisible atoms is confined to certain people; hence, the word “body” in ordinary language cannot designate something known only to certain people—namely, a composite of such atoms.

As for the “second rational principle,” it is their assertion that anything one can point to as being here or there must be composed either of indivisible atoms or of matter and form. This is a question for rational investigation. Most rational human beings—both speculative theologians and others—deny that such things are composed of indivisible atoms or of matter and form. This denial is the position of Ibn Kullāb and his followers, the Kullābiyya—he was the authority whom al-Ashʿarī followed in matters concerning the divine attributes. It is also the position of the Hishāmiyya, the Najjāriyya, the Dirāriyya, and some of the Karrāmiyya.

Those who affirmed the “indivisible atom” claimed that neither through sensory perception nor through self-evident knowledge do we know that Allah has brought into existence anything subsisting in itself. They further claimed that everything we witness being created—clouds, rain, animals, plants, minerals, human beings, and other beings—involves no more than His producing states in indivisible atoms, such as aggregation, separation, motion, and rest. They denied that, when Allah created us, He brought our bodies into existence as entities subsisting in themselves, or brought into existence trees, fruit, or anything else subsisting in itself. According to them, He produced only accidents. As for the indivisible atoms, they had existed all along.

Then, among those who hold that these atoms came into existence, some say that they knew this because the atoms have never been free of events that begin to exist, and whatever has never been free of such events must itself have begun to exist.