I've always seen him mentioned among prominent Ash'ari scholars. I believe he was also the one who came up with a theory of evolution (not Darwinian though, but LaMarckian) centuries before anyone in Europe. And he did pretty much invent Sociology as a social science. I've never heard of any 'ulema calling him a heretic or anything like that, he was, at the time, apparently just another Sunni scholar.