al-Shahrastani (1); indeed, there is more of it in al-Shahrastani’s writings than in those of Abū Ḥāmid, for the group spoke in language that was, on the whole, ambiguous, and many intelligent men were thereby led astray.

We shall now draw attention to, and discuss, every part of this argument just as we have done with the proof cited by the questioner. We say:

Your claim is: If the species “Necessary Existent” were predicated of each of the two, then whatever is said to be necessarily existent must obtain the necessity of its existence either from its very essence or from a cause. By “cause” they mean either the particular existence that belongs to the individual, or the common universal necessity that encompasses them both. If you have the latter in mind, that universal, precisely because it is a general concept, is not realized in external reality but only in the intellect; it exists solely on condition of remaining an unrestricted universal in the mind.

Therefore, when it is said that the necessity of its existence derives from its essence, no absurdity follows, for the presence of a universal in the intellect does not preclude the presence of its individual instances in external reality. And when it is said that it derives from a cause, this does not require that the entity existing outside the mind be caused, for what is in the mind is an accident inhering in the mind and thus in need of a substrate, whereas the Necessary Existent outside the mind is not in need of a substrate—if what you intend is the particular existence that belongs to it, or the necessity that obtains in external reality.