rather than affirmative ones; it may also be described as qualified existence *) (1), sometimes (2) formulated—as al-Rāzī and others do—by saying that no quiddity attaches to it.

These formulations rest on their view that existence attaches to the quiddity of a possible being. People have taken three positions on this question:

It has been said that existence is additional to quiddity in both the Necessary Existent and the possible existent, as Abū Hāshim and others maintain. This is one of al-Rāzī’s two positions, and it is also held by some speculative thinkers among the followers of Ahmad and others.

Others have said: Rather, existence outside the mind is the very reality established there; there are not two distinct things. This is the position of the majority of those who uphold affirmation. It is also the position of the general body of speculative thinkers who affirm the divine attributes, among adherents of the four schools of law and others.

However, al-Shahrastānī, al-Rāzī, al-Āmidī, and others like them assumed that someone holding this position also maintains that the term existence is used equivocally. They attributed this to al-Asharī and others, but that attribution is mistaken. Those who hold this position comprise the great majority of people, past and present, and only a small group among them says that the term “existence” is used equivocally. Nor is this the position of al-Asharī and his followers. Rather, they agree that existence is divided into the eternal and the originated, and that the term existence applies to both.

Al-Asharī does, however, reject the doctrine of ontological states and says that generality and particularity pertain to expressions. What he means is that no general universal meaning exists outside the mind; he does not mean that no general universal meaning subsists in the mind.