separate from the world, what lies beyond the world would be called a direction.”

He is asked: “Why, then, do you say that His being in a direction in this sense would be impossible?”

If he replies, “Because whatever is separate from the world and can be seen must be a body or spatially located,” the discussion returns to the terms “body” and “spatially located,” just as it returned to the term “direction.”

He is then told: “The term ‘spatially located’ may refer to something encompassed by something else, or to something distinct from something else—and thus spatially separate from it. If you intend the former meaning, He—glory be to Him—is not spatially located, for He is separate from created things and nothing else encompasses Him. If you intend the latter, He—glory be to Him—is distinct and separate from created things; He neither inheres in them nor is united with them.”

These distinctions remove confusion and misrepresentation. Otherwise, anyone who denies any of the names or attributes calls whoever affirms them a corporealist who maintains that Allah is spatially located and in a direction. Thus, the Mu'tazilah and others like them call those who affirm the attributes—who say that Allah Most High is living by virtue of life, knowing by virtue of knowledge, powerful by virtue of power, hearing by virtue of hearing, seeing by virtue of sight, and speaking by virtue of speech—corporealists, anthropomorphists, and Hashwiyyah. Those who affirm the attributes include the early generations, the imams, and all the groups that affirm the attributes, such as the Kullābiyyah, Karrāmiyyah, Ash'ariyyah, Sālimiyyah, and other groups within the Muslim community.

Those who deny the attributes among the Jahmiyyah, the Mu'tazilah, and a group of philosophers said to these affirmers: “If you affirm life, power, and speech for Him, these are accidents, and accidents can subsist only in a body. If you say that He can be seen, vision can only be of something directly beheld in a direction, and this entails corporealism.”

If the Ash'arīs and their followers say, “We affirm these attributes but do not call them accidents, because an accident is something that occurs in its subject, whereas these attributes endure and do not cease,” the deniers reply: “This is a verbal dispute. In your own usage, accidents are divided into those inseparable from their subject, never leaving it—so long as