Shaykh al-Imām Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Qawī (1) related to me, on the authority of the muezzin of al-Karak, who said:

“One night I climbed the minaret at the appointed time and engaged in tasbīḥ, then I came down and found al-Khusrawshāhī awake, sitting with the sultan and conversing. He said to me, ‘You have been up there praising until this very hour?’ I replied, ‘Yes.’ He remarked, ‘You have spent the night conversing with the Most Merciful, while I have spent the night conversing with Satan.’

(2) Moreover, concerning what he (3) mentioned—that the Muʿtazilites are deterred from applying their proof consistently in this question because, if the renewal of the determinations of the Essence (4) does not necessarily indicate origination, then it would not be far-fetched for accidental attributes (5) to befall the Essence in the same way—he is obliged to concede the like with respect to the continual renewal of the function of hearing and sight. These faculties pertain only to what exists, not to what is nonexistent. Consequently, after the Lord created existing things, His state regarding hearing and sight is either the same as it was before their existence, or (6) it is not. If His state before is identical to His state after—and prior to creation He neither heard nor saw anything—then the same must hold afterward, for the two states would be equal.

But if it is said that His state afterward differs from His state before, this is an explicit admission of the renewal of states (7) and events, from which there is no escape, and one cannot in this matter apply the reply that was offered concerning