Each of these proofs and others like them yields knowledge of the existence of the Lord, glorified and exalted is He, who is self-sufficient, beginningless, and necessary in Himself.

[Ibn Sīnā and His Followers’ Method of Establishing the Existence of Allah Most High]

Ibn Sīnā and his followers, such as al-Rāzī, al-Āmidī, al-Suhrawardī—who was executed—and their followers, sought to establish the Necessary Existent by arguing from existence. They exalted this method, and some of them thought it the noblest of all methods, believing that every other method depended upon it. They even thought that the argument from origination depended upon it.

All of this is mistaken. Rather, this method would undoubtedly establish the Necessary Existent if they understood the contingent to mean what rational thinkers, both their predecessors and others, recognize as contingent: that which exists at one time and does not exist at another.

But if the contingent is defined as falling into two categories—something beginningless that is necessary through another, and something originated that was preceded by nonexistence—as Ibn Sīnā and his followers maintain, then this unsound premise allows them neither to establish one who is necessary in Himself nor to establish a contingent being that points to one who is necessary in Himself.

This method is, in fact, derived from the argument from origination.