in itself, as do the leading exponents among their Sufis, such as Ibn ‘Arabī, Ibn Sab‘īn, al-Qūnawī, al-Tilimsānī, and others like them.

At other times, they cast doubt on necessary existence itself. They suppose that every existent being may be contingent in itself, with no agent bringing it into existence, and that the totality of existence contains nothing necessary in itself. Rather, this is caused and brought into being, and that is caused and brought into being; nothing exists except what is caused and brought into being. Thus, there would be no agent in existence that is independent of anything else. Sometimes, then, they make every existent being necessary in itself, and sometimes they make every existent being contingent in itself.

Reason necessarily recognizes that both alternatives are false, and that some existing things have come into being: they exist at one time and do not exist at another. Such a thing cannot be necessary in itself, and it must depend on an existent being that is necessary in itself.

Another of their errors concerning the designation “Necessary Existent” is that they have not understood what the proof establishes—His existence derived from something distinct from Him; rather, His existence is through Himself. His existence being through Himself does not preclude His existing through Himself, nor does it preclude the attributes included in the designation of His own self from being inseparable from Him. The proof establishes that contingent beings must have something external to them that is