their proper places. Among these are the sects of the Khawārij, the Rāfidah, the Jahmiyyah, the Muʿtazilah, the Qadariyyah, the Murjiʾah, and others.

Take the Muʿtazilah, for example. They are among those most engaged in speculative theology and disputation, and they have composed Quran commentaries based on the principles of their school. These include the commentary of ʿAbd al-Rahmān ibn Kaysān al-Asamm, the teacher of Ibrāhīm ibn Ismāʿīl ibn ʿUlayyah, who used to debate al-Shāfiʿī; the work of Abū ʿAlī al-Jubbāʾī; the extensive commentaries of Judge ʿAbd al-Jabbār ibn Ahmad al-Hamdānī and ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā al-Rummānī; and al-Kashshāf by Abū al-Qāsim al-Zamakhsharī. These men and others like them embraced the doctrines of the Muʿtazilah.

The Muʿtazilah have “five” principles, which they themselves call: divine oneness, justice, the intermediate position between the two positions, the fulfilment of the threat of punishment, and enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong.

Their “divine oneness” is that of the Jahmiyyah, which entails denying the divine attributes and other matters. They say that Allah cannot be seen, that the Quran is created, that He is not above the world, and that no knowledge, power, life, hearing, sight, speech, will, or any other attribute subsists in Him.

As for their “justice,” part of what it entails is that Allah has not willed everything that exists, nor created it all, and that He does not have power over everything. Rather, they hold that the actions of His servants were not