held that they coexist in Him.

If it is held that they coexist, then either the Essence of the Creator, Most High, is said to be divided, with each letter subsisting in a part of Him, or the letters are said to subsist in His Essence while that Essence is one.

The first alternative is impossible for two reasons:

First: It entails composition in Allah’s Essence, which we have already refuted in our refutation of corporealism.

Second: Assigning certain letters to certain parts rather than others is no more warranted than the reverse.

The second alternative entails the coexistence of mutually opposed things in a single thing, which is impossible.

If we do not affirm that the letters of an utterance coexist in His Essence, this contradicts their principle that, once the Lord, Most High, possesses an attribute, it is impossible for Him to cease to possess it. The preceding letter, which ceased to exist when the subsequent letter came into existence, had been an attribute of the Lord, yet ceased to be after He had possessed it.”

[Ibn Taymiyyah’s commentary]

I say: One might reply that, at most, this would entail that they are mistaken in saying: “Any newly arising event that subsists in Him can never cease to be present in Him.”