and those outside the revealed religions, with three positions held among hadith scholars, speculative theologians, philosophers, and others. All three positions are found among the followers of the four imams, including the followers of Imam Ahmad and others. Al-Qādī Abū Yaʿlā recorded these three positions among Imam Ahmad’s followers in al-Riwāyatayn wa-l-Wajhayn and other works.

Before discussing this, however, it should be understood that “motion,” “movement from one place to another,” “change,” “transformation,” and similar expressions are terms that admit of more than one meaning. Speculative theologians use the term “motion” only for spatial motion: a body’s movement from one place to another, such that the first space is vacated and the second occupied. Examples include the movement of our bodies from one space to another, and the movement of air, water, earth, and clouds from one space to another, with the first being vacated and the second occupied. Most speculative theologians recognize no meaning of motion other than this.

This is why they denied the forms of motion conveyed by the revealed texts: they assumed that all of them indicated only this meaning. The same applies to those who affirmed them but understood them all in this sense—for example, those who understood His descent to the lowest heaven to mean that some of His creatures remain above Him. He would then not be the Ascendant, above whom there is nothing, nor would He be the Exalted, the Most High. Their position would also entail that He is not established above the Throne at all, as explained earlier.

The philosophers, however, apply the term “motion” to everything involving a transition from one state to another. They also say that the essential nature of motion is coming into being, or coming to be and passing from potentiality to actuality, little by little and by degrees. They say that these expressions convey the meaning of motion.