the Sunnah, as he did regarding seeing Allah, divine speech, the attributes known through transmitted revelation, and other matters.

His opponents among the people of the Sunnah and hadith, the Muʿtazilah, and the philosophers say that he is inconsistent: the positions in which he agrees with the Muʿtazilah contradict those in which he agrees with the people of the Sunnah. Likewise, the Muʿtazilah are inconsistent in their defence of Islam, for they have based many of their arguments on principles that contradict much of the religion of Islam.

Indeed, most of al-Ashʿarī’s opponents, both those who affirm the attributes and those who deny them, say that his positions on seeing Allah and divine speech are self-evidently false to reason. Hence his followers say that no other group agrees with their position on “the question of seeing Allah and divine speech.”

Since his discourse contains a mixture of both positions, some have come to say that it contains an element of Jahmism. Anyone who says that his position is identical to Jahm’s has spoken falsely; and anyone who says that it contains nothing of Jahm’s position has also spoken falsely. Allah loves speech grounded in knowledge and justice, giving everyone their due, and according people their proper standing.

Jahm’s position is the absolute denial of Allah’s attributes, exalted is He. This is the essence of the position held by the esoteric Qarmatians and deviant adherents of philosophy, such as al-Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā. As for the more moderate philosophers, such as Abū al-Barakāt, author of al-Muʿtabar, and Ibn Rushd al-Hafīd, their positions contain affirmations that make them better than Jahm’s position, for they are well known for affirming the names