entails all of this, and this entire discussion is addressed to them on the very premise by which they separate His existence from His essence, and Him from His attributes, thereby positing alongside Him something different from Him yet dependent upon Him. In our view this is unsatisfactory; the position we accept is that the existence of every existent is not additional to its essence. Still, when we demonstrate the unsoundness of their claim on their own premises, and show that the Muʿtazilites, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Rāzī, and others like them are superior to the philosophers and nearer to the truth, that constitutes beneficial knowledge for people of insight.

Once it is established that the Being who is necessary in and of Himself neither depends on an efficient cause nor on anything independent of Him, the existence of two self-necessary beings such that one depends on the other becomes inconceivable. Nor may one imagine two necessary beings each dependent on the other, for that would make each of them both necessary in itself and not necessary in itself—a contradiction. The very fact that each exists by itself entails its independence of the other, whereas its need of the other negates that independence; the consequence would be that each is self-sufficient in itself and yet not self-sufficient, needing the other self-sufficient being—an outright, repeated contradiction. As for the existence of a single Necessary Being whose existence entails matters that come into being only together with His existence, that is not impossible.

In this connection there are three possible scenarios. First, the Necessary Being might depend on an efficient cause; this is unquestionably impossible. Second, the Necessary Being might be contingent upon another necessary being; Abū Ḥāmid disputed with them over the admissibility of this, and perhaps, as he remarked regarding the issue of the attributes, his dispute with them here is merely verbal. This is the sixth issue: the philosophers—meaning the Peripatetics—agreed that it is impossible to affirm knowledge, power, and will for the First Principle, and the Muʿtazilites agreed with them. They maintained that these names occur in revelation and may be used in ordinary language, yet they ultimately refer back to a single essence, as explained earlier, and that it is impermissible to affirm attributes that are additional to His essence, whereas in our case our knowledge, power, and other attributes can indeed be things that are over and above our essence. They also claimed that this