—the Creator, and so it created; and at still other times they maintain that the Holy Spirit assisted it in the act of creation. These four assertions each undermine the others.

If Allah is the creator of everything, then the creator is one; there is no other creator beside Him, nor any partner who shares His act of creation.

When the Creator brings things into being by His word—“Be!”—His speech itself is not a creator. Were every utterance a divine creator, there would be an endless multitude of creating gods.

Yet they then declare, “It is not created; rather, it is begotten of Him before all ages.”

We ask: Which of the prophets ever called any attribute of Allah begotten and eternally existing without beginning? How can something be both begotten and eternal without beginning? Is anything that is begotten even conceivable except as something newly originated?

Furthermore, if it is permissible to claim that the Word—understood by them as divine knowledge or wisdom—is begotten of Him, then His life must likewise be begotten of Him. And if His life is said to proceed from Him, then His Word must also proceed from Him.

To assert that one of the two eternal attributes is “begotten from eternity” yet not “proceeding,” while the other is not begotten but instead “proceeds,” is not only false but self-contradictory, drawing an arbitrary distinction between two identical realities.

For if it were admissible to label an eternal, timeless attribute as begotten of Him, then life itself would likewise be begotten.