mine?'"[115] Al-Jubbai was
silent, though very angry with his pupil, who was now convinced that the
Mutazilite dogma of man's free-will was false, and that God elects some for
mercy and some for punishment without any motive whatever. Disagreeing with
his teacher on this point, he soon began to find other points of
difference, and soon announced his belief that the Quran was not created.
This occurred on a Friday in the Great Mosque at Basra. Seated in his chair
he cried out in a loud voice: "They who know me know who I am; as for those
who do not know me I shall tell them; I am 'Ali Ibn Isma'il Al-Ash'ari, and
I used to hold that the Quran was created, that the eyes (of men) shall not
see God, and that we ourselves are the authors of our evil deeds; now, I
have returned to the truth: I renounce these opinions, and I take the
engagement to refute the Mutazilites and expose their infamy and
turpitude."[116]

He then, adopting scholastic methods, started a school of {130} thought of
his own, which was in the main a return to orthodoxy. The Ash'arian
doctrines differ slightly from the tenets of the Sifatians of which sect
Al-Ash'ari's disciples form a branch. The Ash'arians hold--

(i.) That the attributes of God are distinct from His essence, yet in such
a way as to forbid any comparison being made between God and His creatures.
They say they are not "_'ain_ nor _ghair_:" not of His essence, nor
distinct from it: _i.e.,_ they cannot be compared with any other things.

(ii.) That God has one eternal will from which proceed all things, the good
and the evil, the useful and the hurtful. The destiny of man was written on
the eternal table before the world was created. So far they go with the
Sifatians, but in order to preserve the moral responsibility of man they
say that he has power to convert will into action. But this power cannot
create anything new for then God's sovereignty would be impaired; so they
say that God in His providence so orders matters that whenever "a man
desires to do a certain thing, good or bad, the action corresponding to the
desire is, there and then, created by God, and, as it were, fitted on to
the desire." Thus it seems as if it came naturally from the will of the
man, whereas it does not. This action is called Kasb (acquisition) because
it is acquired by a special creative act of God. It is an act directed to
the obtaining of profit, or the removing of injury: the term is, therefore,
inapplicab