origination (takwīn) is eternal, we must also concede that all things thereby originated and created are themselves eternal—an idea that our very senses declare to be patently false; while if we say that it is contingent, we are forced to admit that contingent events subsist in Him.
As for the jurists, the ḥadith scholars, the Sufis, and the diverse theologians who refuted the Muʿtazilah—among them the Murjiʾah, the Shīʿah, the Karrāmiyyah, and others—they consistently apply the proofs already mentioned (1). They state that no one is truly an Agent unless an act inheres in His very Essence, and that origination inheres in His Essence (2); moreover, the creating that inheres in Him is other than the creation that is the created thing itself. This is precisely what the jurists from the schools of Abū Ḥanīfah, al-Shāfiʿī, Aḥmad, and Mālik (3) record in their writings; it is likewise affirmed by Ḥanafī authorities such as al-Ṭaḥāwī (4), Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī (5), and others, as well as by al-Baghawī in Sharḥ al-Sunnah (6) and by Hanbalī scholars such as Abū Isḥāq (7) and Abū Bakr ʿAbd
(1) In the original: al-dalāla (the indication).
(2) The text enclosed in brackets is an addition found in manuscripts S and T.
(3) The text enclosed in brackets is an addition found in manuscripts S and T.
(4) In his Aqīdat Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jamāʿah (The Creed of Ahl al-Sunnah and the Community), pp. 6–7 (note by Shaykh Muḥammad ibn Manʿī).
(5) In al-Tawḥīd (Monotheism) by Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī, pp. 44–49.
(6) Sharḥ al-Sunnah by al-Baghawī, vol. 1, pp. 177–180, chapter “Refutation of the Jahmiyyah.”
(7) Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm ibn Aḥmad ibn Shaqla al-Baghdādī (d. 369 AH) was a leading Hanbali sheikh, prolific narrator, and expert in usūl (principles) and furūʿ (branches). See Ibn Abī Ya‘lā, Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila 2:128–139; Ibn al-‘Imād, Shudḥrāt al-Dhahab 3:68. In his unpublished treatise Ibtāl al-Ta’wīlāt (folio 147), al-Qāḍī Abū Ya‘lā states: “All the names and attributes by which Allāh has described Himself or by which He has been described by His Messenger are eternal and eternally predicated; He has always been and will always be in His attributes Creator, Sustainer, Exister, Non-exister, Giver of life, Causer of death.” Abū Isḥāq then addressed this issue separately, as transcribed from the autograph of Abū Bakr al-Kashī: “and he asserted…”.