Section: Human beings and all created beings are servants of Allah

Section
Indeed, the human being—indeed, every created thing—is a servant of Allah, utterly dependent upon Him, owned by Him. He alone is their Lord, their Sovereign, and their God; there is no deity but Him. The creature possesses nothing of its own whatsoever; its very essence, attributes, actions, and whatever benefit it enjoys or merit it earns are all creations of Allah. Allah is the Lord, Master, Originator, Creator, and Fashioner of them all.

When we say that the creature has nothing of itself except non-existence, we mean that non-existence is not a real entity in need of an existent agent to produce it. Non-existence is nothing at all, and its persistence depends only on the absence of an agent’s action; it is not that the agent’s absence produces and necessitates it in the way the agent produces an existent effect. One may attribute the non-occurrence of an effect to the absence of its cause, yet there is a clear difference: the existent effect is created and originated by the agent, whereas the nonexistent thing is not originated by the agent’s non-existence. To claim otherwise would entail infinite regress and circularity. Moreover, it is no more valid to say that one non-existent “causes” the other than to claim the reverse, for neither non-existence is distinguished by any reality that would qualify it to act—although it is conceivable that…