that when a human being dies, all his atoms continue to exist, though dispersed; then, when he is resurrected, Allah Most High gathers them together.

This is why many of their most astute thinkers ultimately came to suspend judgment, including Abū al-Husayn al-Basrī (1), Abū al-Ma‘ālī al-Juwaynī, and Abū Abd Allāh al-Rāzī. The same was true of Ibn Aqīl, al-Ghazālī, and other speculative theologians like them who discerned the unsoundness of these people’s doctrines. They would condemn those doctrines, saying, “The best outcome they can attain is doubt”—although in many of their writings they had agreed with them on much of the falsehood they espoused. An extensive demonstration of the falsity of the doctrine that things are composed of sensible, indivisible atoms (2) or intelligible substances belongs elsewhere.

The same applies to the intelligible substances posited by the Peripatetics, such as intellects and immaterial souls, as well as matter, duration, Platonic forms, and abstract numbers, all or some of which are affirmed by many of the Peripatetics—the followers of Pythagoras, Plato (3), and Aristotle. Upon careful examination, however, the intelligible entities they posit are found to exist only in the mind, not in external reality. An extensive treatment of this belongs elsewhere (4). The author of this work has offered nothing in support of his position beyond bare assertion, so we have not treated it at length.

The sole purpose here is to point out that the ultimate conclusion of these people’s foundational principle—the principle by which