and thus they negated both sides of the contradiction, which is impossible according to the self-evident principles of reason. They distorted the Scripture Allah revealed and what the Messenger brought, thereby falling into something worse than what they sought to escape. For they likened Him to impossibilities: denying both sides of a contradiction is just as impossible as affirming both together. It is necessarily known that existence requires an originator whose existence is necessary in itself, who is independent of everything else, beginningless and eternal, and for whom neither coming into being nor nonexistence is possible. Yet they described Him as that which cannot possibly exist, let alone be necessary, existent, or beginningless.

A group of philosophers and their followers approached this position. They described Him through negations and relations, without affirming attributes, and identified Him with absolute existence subject to the condition of absoluteness. Clear reason establishes that this exists only in the mind, not among things existing outside it. They identified the attribute with the one possessing it, making knowledge identical to the knower in defiance of self-evident propositions. They also identified one attribute with another, making no distinction between knowledge, power, and will, thereby denying truths known by necessity.

A third group approached their position: the speculative theologians among the Muʿtazilah and their followers. They affirmed Allah’s names without affirming the attributes those names entail. Some treated the All-Knowing, the All-Powerful, the All-Hearing, and the All-Seeing as merely synonymous proper names. Others said: “All-Knowing without knowledge, All-Powerful without power, All-Hearing and All-Seeing without hearing or sight.” Thus they affirmed the name without affirming the attributes it entails.