 Al-Ghazālī’s Ash’arite predecessors tend to deny the existence of Aristotelian natures because these would impose restrictions on God’s action. If a body has an Aristotelian nature, it has an internal principle, which restricts the sorts of changes it can undergo from one moment to the next. For example, the dead cannot be raised and a staff cannot become a snake. According to Islamic theology, however, God can raise the dead and turn a staff into a snake. Thus, bodies do not have Aristotelian natures, since the existence of such natures would conflict with the doctrine of divine omnipotence.