in this field and his refutation of the doctrines of those who deny the attributes through various forms of proof and argument. What he presented became an aid and support for many people of understanding, delivering them from those specious arguments. He thus became an exemplar and leader for those who came after him who affirmed the attributes and refuted those who denied them. Nevertheless, they shared some of the deniers’ unsound foundational principles, which rendered some of their statements rationally unsound and contrary to the Messenger’s Sunnah.

Among his followers were al-Hārith al-Muhāsibī and Abū al-‘Abbās al-Qalānisī, followed by Abū al-Hasan al-Ash‘arī, Abū al-Hasan ibn Mahdī al-Tabarī, Abū al-‘Abbās al-Duba‘ī, Abū Sulaymān al-Dimashqī, Abū Hātim al-Bustī, and others who affirmed the attributes, affiliated themselves with the Sunnah and hadith, and bore the title “the speculative theologians of the people of hadith.”

Many later followers of Mālik, al-Shāfi‘ī, and Ahmad adopted Ibn Kullāb’s approach of distinguishing between “inherent attributes,” such as life, and “attributes dependent on His will,” holding that the former, but not the latter, subsist in the Lord. These included members of the Tamīmī family: Abū al-Hasan al-Tamīmī, his son Abū al-Fadl al-Tamīmī, and his grandson Rizq Allāh al-Tamīmī. In discussing Ahmad’s beliefs as part of his account of Ahmad’s virtues, Abū Bakr al-Bayhaqī relied on al-Fadl’s creed, which al-Fadl stated was Ahmad’s creed. Likewise, this approach of Ibn Kullāb was adopted by Abū al-Hasan ibn Sālim and his followers