to the Mu'tazila, such as this line of reasoning. Consequently, the Mu'tazila [and other speculative theologians] (1) began saying (2), “He is self-contradictory in this regard.”

Likewise, all the other adherents of the Sunnah and hadith say, “This is a contradiction (3), and it is a remnant (4) of Mu'tazilite doctrine that he retained.”

The basis of all this is this very line of reasoning, which is also found in the writings of many followers of Ahmad, al-Shāfi'i, and Mālik. Many of them disagree with al-Ash'arī on various issues, yet have [agreed with him] (5) on the underlying principle to which those issues ultimately return. People therefore speak of their inconsistency just as they spoke of al-Ash'arī's inconsistency, the Mu'tazila's inconsistency, and the philosophers' inconsistency. No group departs in even a slight respect from the pure Sunnah and hadith without its discourse containing a corresponding degree of contradiction. Those most beset by contradiction are those furthest from the Sunnah, such as the philosophers, followed by the Mu'tazila and the Rāfida.

When these people believed that they (6) had established through this proof that bodies are temporally originated, it necessarily followed that corporeality must be denied of Allah, for Allah is beginningless and not originated. The Mu'tazila therefore said:

“Whatever has attributes subsisting in it is a body, because attributes are accidents, and an accident cannot subsist”