be perceived in this world by some people but not others, such as the prophets who saw the angels and heard their speech.”

This approach—that everything subsisting in itself can be seen—is the one followed by leading rational thinkers such as Ibn Kullāb and others. Ibn al-Zāghūnī and others also followed it.

As for the claim that every existent can be seen or perceived through all five senses, as maintained by al-Ashʿarī and those who agree with him, such as al-Qādī Abū Yaʿlā, Abū al-Maʿālī, and others, this approach is rejected by the overwhelming majority of rational thinkers. Indeed, they say that its invalidity is self-evident once it is fully understood, as has been explained at length elsewhere.

The same applies to their dispute concerning the human spirit, which departs from a person at death according to the majority, who hold that it is an entity subsisting in itself, neither an accident of the body, such as life and the like, nor a part of the body, such as the air exhaled from it. Many speculative theologians, however, have claimed that it is an accident subsisting in the body or one of its parts. Yet this contradicts the Quran, the Sunnah, the consensus of the early and later generations, the position of the overwhelming majority of rational thinkers among all nations, and rational proofs. This is one of the points the philosophers have used to assert their superiority over many speculative theologians.

Al-Qādī Abū Bakr said that most speculative theologians hold that the spirit is one of the accidents