from its temporal origination and that of other things. Others have erred in supposing that one must know that every subject in which attributes subsist is temporally originated. They may refer to such a subject as a body, a substance, a bounded entity, a composite, or by other expressions. Others argue from the temporal origination of whatever has temporally occurring events subsisting in it, and say that everything in which attributes subsist is temporally originated.

The philosophers did not follow this path because they believe that some bodies are eternal, with temporally occurring events and attributes inhering in them. In their view, being a body, being distinct and eternal, and having attributes and temporally occurring events inhering in it do not entail that something is temporally originated. Indeed, according to Aristotle, these do not even entail that it is contingent, capable of either existence or nonexistence.

Many theologians, such as the Hishāmiyya, the Karrāmiyya, and others, likewise did not follow this path. Nor, indeed, did the early generations of the Muslim community and its leading scholars, as has been explained at length elsewhere.

Nor did the later theologians who constructed a method combining the teachings of the philosophers with those of their theological predecessors—such as al-Rāzī, al-Āmidī, al-Tūsī, and others like them—follow this path. Rather, they followed the method Ibn Sīnā set out for establishing the Necessary Existent.

[Ibn Sīnā’s Method]

Ibn Sīnā’s method was not followed by his philosophical predecessors, such as Aristotle and his followers