namely such blanket expressions as: mutahayyiz (occupying a spatial locus), maḥdūd (delimited), jism (body), murakkab (composite), and the like. They then rejected everything these terms denote, treating that rejection as a premise unanimously accepted among themselves and as something demonstrated by a certain syllogism. Yet that very syllogism was the same path they had pursued when arguing for the origination of the universe from the origination of accidents, or for the contingency of a body on the grounds that it is composed of parts. Logical consistency therefore required them to carry the proof of origination and contingency through to everything covered by that argument, for a conclusive demonstration admits of no abandonment in the face of a supposedly stronger counter-argument. They soon perceived, however, that this would undermine them—first in view of the scriptural texts, and second from the standpoint of reason—so they split into factions.

At times they would give priority to the first syllogism and dismiss whatever opposed it; those were the Muʿtazilah. At other times they would favor the second syllogism and set aside the first, as did Hishām ibn al-Ḥakam the Rāfiḍī. It is even said that the earliest debate over the term “body,” whether in the mode of denial or affirmation, arose during the era of Hishām ibn al-Ḥakam and Abū’l-Hudhayl al-ʿAllāf. Abū’l-Hudhayl and others among the early Muʿtazilah denied that God is a body on the basis of their chosen proof, whereas Hishām disputed them and affirmed that He is a body on the basis of