People hold four views on this.

One view holds that such a succession is impossible in both the past and the future. This is the view of Jahm and Abū al-Hudhayl. Hence Jahm held that Paradise and Hell would cease to exist, while Abū al-Hudhayl held that their movements would cease.

Another view holds that it is impossible in the past but not in the future. This is the view of many groups among the speculative theologians, including most of the Muʿtazilites, Ashʿarites, Karrāmites, and others.

A third view holds that it is possible in both the past and the future for something dependent on another, such as the celestial sphere—whether it is said to need an originator, as Ibn Sīnā and his followers maintain, or to need something it seeks to resemble, as Aristotle and his followers maintain.

A fourth view holds that it is possible in both the past and the future, but not for anything other than the Lord. Anything other than Him is created and brought about, and the events occurring within it arise only through something else. It therefore depends on another both in itself and in its events. Whatever is dependent must be subject to a lord, and whatever is subject to a lord must be created and brought into being. Something brought into being cannot have a beginningless series of events occurring within it. For whatever does not precede a particular event and a finite set of events must itself have come into being, just as they have, as all rational people agree. If it did not precede them, it must either exist together with them or after them; in either case, it has come into being.

This is unlike the eternal, beginningless Lord, who is necessarily existent in Himself. For if He has always spoken whenever He wills and done whatever He wills, that is part of His perfection. This accords with what the imams of the Sunnah and hadith have stated.