The majority of rational thinkers, however, disputed this and said: “Rather, the blackness and whiteness that existed an hour ago are the very same qualities that exist now.” This has been discussed at length elsewhere; the purpose here is simply to draw attention to the different groups’ positions on this principle.

The “Kullābiyyah” said: “As for temporal occurrences, if they subsisted in Him, it would follow that He could never be free of them, since whatever is receptive to something cannot be devoid of both it and its opposite. If He could never be free of them, it would follow that He too had come into existence, for this is the very argument used to establish that bodies have come into existence.”

This is their principal argument concerning this principle. Their opponents may reject both premises or only one of them.

Many speculative theologians and hadith scholars rejected the first premise, including the Hishāmiyyah, the Karrāmiyyah, Abū Mu‘ādh, and Zuhayr al-Ibrī. Likewise, al-Rāzī, al-Āmidī, and other Ash‘arīs rejected the first premise and demonstrated its invalidity, explaining that those who assert it have no evidence for their claim. Something may, in fact, be receptive to a quality while being devoid of both that quality and its opposite, as actually occurs. Those who uphold this principle committed themselves to maintaining that every body has a taste, a colour, a smell, and all the other kinds of accidents that bodies can receive.

The majority of rational thinkers therefore said: “This is a blatant denial of the obvious and an unsupported claim.” The Kullābiyyah committed themselves to it only because of this principle.

As for the second premise—namely, denying the perpetual succession of temporal occurrences—it is rejected by the leading scholars of the Sunnah and hadith who maintain that Allah speaks by His will and power and that His words have no end; by those who maintain that He has always been active, as al-Bukhārī and others state; and by those who say that