Some of them went so far as to claim that darkness is beginningless and eternal; yet even so they regarded it as blameworthy and in no way comparable to light. Others contended instead that darkness is something originated, asserting that Light conceived a base thought, and that from this defective thought darkness came into being.

The people of pure monotheism said to them: “According to your own assertion, you were averse to attributing the evil found in the universe to the Lord—glorified and exalted is He—yet you have made Him the creator of the very root of evil. Moreover, although you affirm two principles and are therefore called dualists, you still do not claim that the evil principle is the equal of the good.”

The same applies to the naturalists—the materialist philosophers and the like. Among them are those who deny any Maker of the cosmos, just as Pharaoh—may Allah curse him—openly did. Others acknowledge a First Cause which the celestial spheres move to emulate, such as Aristotle and his followers. Still others speak of a cause that necessitates by its very essence and necessarily entails the existence of the celestial sphere; Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā) is typical of this view.