They said: “Through this ‘rational proof’ and others like it, we have learned that He has not originated anything subsisting in itself; for what we witness is the inherence of observable events, such as clouds and rain.”
Their discussion of “bodily resurrection” rests on this principle. Some say that He separates the constituent parts and then gathers them together. Others say that He annihilates them and then restores them to existence. Here they became confused over how resurrection would occur when one animal has eaten another. Some claimed that Allah annihilates all the constituent parts of the world. Others say: “This is possible, but we do not know whether or not it occurs.” According to them, “resurrection” then requires Him to originate these atoms anew.
Jahm ibn Safwān, who is one of them, maintains that they will cease to exist thereafter, and that Paradise and Hell will perish, because he considers an unending succession of events in the future impossible, just as he considers it impossible in the past. Abū al-Hudhayl al-ʿAllāf maintains that motions will cease.
These people deny that bodies can be transformed into one another, or that one kind can turn into another. Rather, according to them, atoms are identical in nature, and bodies are composed of them. There is nothing beyond a change in composition: no conversion or transformation takes place. Undoubtedly, most rational people, Muslims and others, reject this. Physicians and jurists are among those who affirm that bodies can be transformed into one another, as is found in their books. In their view, bodies are not identical in nature: water differs from air, air differs from earth, and human bodies differ from plants.
Thus, according to those who deny the divine attributes, whenever someone affirms any attribute, this necessarily makes the being possessing it a body—and, in their view, bodies are identical in nature. They therefore label such a person someone who likens Allah to created beings, on the basis of these premises, which commit them to the like of