the Muʿtazilah, who consequently maintained that the Quran is created and that Allah has no will subsisting in Him, nor love, hatred, or the like. They reduced everything attributed to Allah to either attributing something He created to Him or describing Him without any corresponding attribute subsisting in Him.

(The second is the position of those who affirm the attributes, among Ahl al-Sunnah and others, who hold that the attributes subsist in Him. They say that He has a pre-eternal will and pre-eternal speech. They differ, however, concerning His love, hatred, mercy, wrath, pleasure, displeasure, and the like: do these mean His will, or are they other attributes distinct from His will? There are two views on this, and this disagreement exists among the Hanbalīs, Ashʿarīs, and others.

They also say that the act of creation is not something distinct from both the created thing and the pre-eternal attributes of will and speech. They then state that theologians hold four views on whether the act of creation is identical with the created thing:

First: the act of creation is the created thing itself.

Second: it subsists in the created thing.

Third: it is a self-subsisting reality.

Fourth: it subsists in the Creator.

[Al-Qādī Abū Yaʿlā the Younger said: Some of our companions say that the act of creation is the created thing itself