events, thus invalidating the very principle they had established—namely, that bodies are never devoid (1) of events.
This is the same principle established by Hishām ibn al-Hakam, Hishām ibn Sālim (2) al-Jawālīqī, and others among the corporealists, both Rāfidite and non-Rāfidite (3), such as the Karrāmites. They said:
“Rather, a body may exist that is pre-eternal [beginningless] (4), with no beginning to its existence, and entirely devoid of events.”
According to them, this pre-eternal, beginningless body is devoid of events, whereas created bodies are never devoid of events. They say:
“Whatever is never devoid of events is temporally originated.”
They do not, however, (5) say that no body is ever devoid of events.
Then these Jahmites, who upheld this innovated principle, were compelled to apply it consistently. They said:
“No attributes or actions (6) subsist in the Lord, for they are accidents and events, and these subsist only in a body. Bodies are temporally originated. It therefore follows that neither knowledge, power, speech, will, mercy, pleasure, anger, nor any other attribute subsists in the Lord. Rather, everything (7) of this kind ascribed to Him is merely a created thing separate from Him.”