Abu al-Hasan al-Ashʿari was noted for his teachings on atomism, among the earliest Islamic

philosophies, and for al-Ashʿari this was the basis for propagating the view that God created
every moment in time and every particle of matter. He nonetheless believed in free will,
elaborating the thoughts of Dirar ibn 'Amr and Abu Hanifa into a "dual agent" or "acquisition"
(iktisab) account of free will.[6][page needed]
While al-Ashʿari opposed the views of the Mu'tazili school for its over-emphasis on reason,
he was also opposed to the view which rejected all debate, held by certain schools such as
the Zahiri ("literalist"), Mujassimite ("anthropotheist") and Muhaddithin ("traditionalist")
schools for their over-emphasis on taqlid(imitation) in his Istihsan al-Khaud:[7]
"A section of the people (i.e., the Zahirites and others) made capital out of their own
ignorance; discussions and rational thinking about matters of faith became a heavy burden
for them, and, therefore, they became inclined to blind faith and blind following (taqlid). They
condemned those who tried to rationalize the principles of religion as 'innovators.' They
considered discussion about motion, rest, body, accident, colour, space, atom, the leaping
of atoms, and Attributes of God, to be an innovation and a sin. They said that had such
discussions been the right thing, the Prophet and his Companions would have definitely
done so; they further pointed out that the Prophet, before his death, discussed and fully
explained all those matters which were necessary from the religious point of view, leaving
none of them to be discussed by his followers; and since he did not discuss the problems
mentioned above, it was evident that to discuss them must be regarded as an innovation."

Development[edit]
Ashʿarism became the main school of early Islamic philosophy whereby it was originally
based on the foundations laid down by Abu al-Hasan al-Ashʿari who founded the school in
the 10th century based on the methodology taught to him by his teacher Abdullah ibn
Sa'eed ibn Kullaab. However, the school underwent many changes throughout history
resulting in the term Ashʿari, in modern usage, being extremely broad, e.g. differences
between Ibn Fawrak (d. AH 406) and al-Bayhaqi (d. AH 384).[8][9]
For example, the Asharite view was that comprehension of the unique nature and
characteristics of God were beyond human capability. The solution proposed by Abu al-
Hasan al-Ashʿari to solve the problems of tashbih and ta'til concedes that the Divine Being
possesses in a real sense the attributes and Names mentioned in the Quran. Insofar as
these names and attributes have a positive reality, they are distinct from the essence, but
nevertheless they do not have either existence or reality apart from it. The inspiration of al-
Ashʿari in this matter was on the one hand to distinguish essence and attribute as concepts,
and on the other hand to see that the duality between essence and attribute should be
situated not on the quantitative but on the qualitative level — something which Mu'tazili
thinking had failed to grasp.[10]