At other times they try to prove this by claiming that a body is never free of at least one accident from every genus of accidents. They say, “Whatever is receptive of a quality is never devoid of that quality or of its opposite.” They also maintain, “Accidents cannot remain, for an accident does not persist for two successive moments.” This is the method chosen by al-Āmidī (1), who dismissed the other approaches and reported that the majority of his associates relied on it (2).

A number of jurists from among the followers of the four Imams concurred with them on this point—such as the judge Abū Yaʿlā (3), Abū al-Maʿālī al-Juwaynī (4), Abū al-Walīd al-Bājī (5), and others like them (6).

Abū al-Maʿālī al-Juwaynī addressed this principle in two passages of his book al-Irshād.

The first passage (7) occurs in the discussion of the world’s origination, where he employs the well-known “accidents” proof: a body is never without accidents, and whatever is never without them is originated. This is the very argument the Muʿtazilah had adopted before him, which al-Ashʿarī condemned in his Epistle to the People of the Frontier (8), pointing out that it is not among the methods of the prophets or their followers.

The proof on which al-Juwaynī relies is built upon four premises: