He is generally included among the As̱ẖ‘arite. But strictly speaking he is not an As̱ẖ‘arite; though he admitted that the As̱ẖ‘arite mode of thought was excellent for the masses. "He held", says S̱ẖiblī (‘Ilmal-Kalām, p. 66.), "that the secret of faith could not be revealed; for this reason he encouraged exposition of the As̱ẖ‘arite theology, and took good care in persuading his immediate disciples not to publish the results of his private reflection". Such an attitude towards the As̱ẖ‘arite theology, combined with his constant use of philosophical language, could not but lead to suspicion. Ibn Jauzī, Qāḍī ‘Iyāḍ, and other famous theologians of the orthodox school, publicly denounced him as one of the "misguided"; and ‘Iyāḍ went even so far as to order the destruction of all his philosophical and theological writings that existed in Spain. It is, therefore, clear that while the dialectic of Rationalism destroyed the personality of God, and reduced divinity to a bare indefinable universality, the antirationalist movement, though it preserved the dogma of personality, destroyed the external reality of nature. In spite of Nazzām's theory of "Atomic objectification"[77:1], the atom of the Rationalist possesses an independent objective reality; that of the As̱ẖ‘arite is a fleeting moment of Divine Will. The one saves nature, and tends to do away with the God of Theology; the other sacrifices nature to save God as conceived by the orthodox. The God-intoxicated Ṣūfī who stands aloof from the Theological controversies of the age, saves and spiritualises both the aspects of existence, and looks upon the whole Universe as the self-revelation of God--a higher notion which synthesises the opposite extremes of his predecessors. "Wooden-legged" Rationalism, as the Ṣūfī called it, speaks its last word in the sceptic Al-G̱ẖazālī, whose restless soul, after long and hopeless wanderings in the desolate sands of dry intellectualism, found its final halting place in the still deep of human emotion. His scepticism is directed more to substantiate the necessity of a higher source of knowledge than merely to defend the dogma of Islamic Theology, and, therefore, marks the quiet victory of Ṣūfīism over all the rival speculative tendencies of the time. [77:1] Ibn Ḥazm, Vol. V, p. 63, 64, where the author states and criticises this theory.