do not know many of these positions; hence much contentious debate has arisen among them. What we have mentioned merely indicates the principal outlines of the various schools.

(1)
[The foundational principle by which the people of the Sunnah and the Community—among the Companions, those who followed them with excellence, whether from the Prophet’s Household or otherwise, and all the other imams of the Muslims—distinguished themselves from the Jahmiyyah, the Muʿtazilah, and other deniers of the attributes is this: the Lord Most High is described only by what subsists in Him; He is not described by His created beings. This principle was consistently upheld by the early generations and the majority. The Muʿtazilah, however, considered the Ashʿarīs—and those who agreed with them—vulnerable because of their inconsistency regarding this principle: they described Him by attributes pertaining to action, even though, in their view, no act subsists in Him. In this respect, al-Ashʿarī followed the Jahmiyyah and the Muʿtazilah, who denied that any act subsists in Him; unlike the Ashʿarīs, however, those groups also denied the attributes.

The Muʿtazilah disagreed among themselves concerning the act of creating: Is it the created thing itself, or something other than it?

When they maintained that it was something other than the created thing, some said that it was a “meaning” subsisting in no locus, as the Basrans asserted concerning the will. Others said that there were infinitely many “meanings” at one and the same instant, as maintained by Maʿmar and his followers, who are called the Proponents of Meanings. Still others said that it subsisted in the created thing.

The argument advanced by al-Ashʿarī and those who agreed with him that the act of creating is the created thing itself was as follows: If it were something other than the created thing, it would have to be either eternal or originated. If it were eternal, the created thing would necessarily be eternal. This is self-evidently impossible where the thing’s origination is known by necessity, and demonstrably impossible where its origination is established by proof. If it were originated, it would itself be created, and thus the act of creating would stand in need of—