the Mu'tazilites, approached them more closely, gave them precedence over the people of the Sunna and affirmation, and contradicted their own early ones." End quote.

Thus, the Ash'arites in the beginning of their affair received from the Jahmīs and the Mu'tazilites some of their roots regarding the attributes; so they denied the voluntary actions of God, following them.

Then the convergence began between their school of law and the school of law of the Jahmīs and the Mu'tazilites in the chapters of creed until it nearly became a single school of law.

• Ibn Taymiyya, may Allah have mercy on him, said in Bayān Talbīs al-Jahmiyya (4/401): "So it is known that these [meaning: the later Ash'arites], the reality of their inner state is the inner state of the denuding Jahmī Mu'tazilites, even if their outward appearance is the outward appearance of the people of affirmation, just as the Mu'tazilites, upon verification, the reality of their affair is the affair of the heretics who deny the names and attributes entirely, even if they feign refuting them, and the heretics, the reality of their affair is the reality of one who denies the Maker entirely; this, by my life, is upon verification." End quote.

• And he, may Allah have mercy on him, said in al-Fatāwā al-Kubrā (5/324) in the context of his refutation of the later Ash'arites: "So the generality of what the predecessors and the Imams censured and faulted the Mu'tazilites for, of scholastic theology that contradicts the Book, the Sunna, and the ancient consensus, you have an abundant share of it. Rather, sometimes you are more severe in contradicting that than the Mu'tazilites, and you have shared with them in the roots of their misguidance by which they parted from the predecessors of the nation and its Imams, and by which they cast the Book of God behind their backs...

until he said: And you are their partners in all these roots, and from them you took them, and you are their fledglings in them, as it is said: The Ash'arites are the effeminates of the Mu'tazilites, and the Mu'tazilites are the effeminates of the philosophers; however, when the corruption of the school of law of the Mu'tazilites spread among the nation, and hearts became averse to them, you began to manifest refutation against them in some places, despite your proximity to or agreement with them in reality." End quote.

• And al-Sijzī (d. 444 AH), may Allah have mercy on him, said in his Risāla ilā Ahl Zabīd, which is an epistle in which he refutes the Ash'arites, and clarifies in it the reality of their school of law, and their agreement with the Jahmīs and the Mu'tazilites.

He said (p. 137): "The fifth section: (Clarification of their agreement with the Mu'tazilites in many of the issues of roots, and that they exceed them in ugliness, and the corruption of speech in some of them)."