except in a body.” It therefore denied the attributes and also denied that voluntary acts subsist in Him, because they are accidents and because they are temporally originated.

It said:

“The Quran is created, because the Quran is speech and is an accident; and because it depends upon motion, which is temporally originated, it can subsist only in a body.”

It also said:

“He will not be seen in the Hereafter, because the eye sees only a body or something subsisting in a body.”

It said:

“[He] (1) is not above the world, because that would constitute a spatial position (2), and nothing can be [in it] (3) except a body (4) or something subsisting in a body.”

This is the doctrine mentioned by this Imāmī scholar. He did not discuss it at length; for this reason (5), we have confined ourselves (6) to this much, since the matter is treated fully elsewhere.

Those who affirm the attributes then said to the Mu'tazila:

“You say that Allah is Living, All-Knowing, and All-Powerful, yet such a being can only be a body. If you apply your position consistently, it necessarily follows that Allah is a body.

“But if you say, ‘Rather, one who is not a body may be called by these names (7),’ you will be told, ‘These attributes may likewise be affirmed of one who is not a body.’”

They also said to them:

“To affirm one who is living without life, one who knows without knowledge, and one who is powerful