all of them. Yet that, in and of itself, does not establish either alternative—namely, denial—without corroborating evidence, and he has produced none. Indeed, he offered no proof on the issue except his remark: “Were He to receive them, He would not be free of them.” (1) In that argument he merely referred back to what he had mentioned earlier: were He to receive temporal events, He would not be rid of them, because—as has previously (2) been demonstrated with regard to the jawāhir (substances) (3)—we have judged it impossible for a substance to be stripped of all aʿrāḍ (accidents). What he is referring back to, then, is exactly what he presented in the discussion on the origination of bodies, where he outlined the well-known kalām procedure founded upon four principles (4) and said (5):
(1) In edition T: hujjah.
(2) The text within the curly braces is an addition found in both S and T.
(3) Sheikh al-Islam—may Allah have mercy on him—explains in Dar' Ta'arud al-'Aql wa-al-Naql (vol. 2, p. 196) that one might say: “He cites no proof there except the qiyas (analogy) of ascribing the prior attribute to what follows it, which is not a rational scientific proof. Its purpose is merely to argue by a disputable method in a significant rational issue, leading to the dismissal of the texts of the Qur’an and Sunnah. From it are derived weighty issues concerning the divine attributes and actions—on which people were confused—by those who reduce the fundamentals of religion to mere opinions of a sect of kalam theologians who agreed without any rational or scriptural evidence.”
(4) al-Juwayni states that the doctrine of the huduth al-jawahir is based on four principles: first, the affirmation of accidents; second, the affirmation of their temporality; third, the impossibility of the jawahir existing devoid of accidents—which is the point examined here by the Sheikh (may Allah have mercy on him); and fourth, the impossibility of successive temporal occurrences without a first cause. See them summarized in al-Irshad, pp. 17–18, and detailed on pp. 18–27.
(5) al-Juwayni, al-Irshad, pp. 22–25.
(6) In S and T: wa-amma.
(7) In the original: al-jawahir; this reading is confirmed by S, T, and al-Irshad.