and an effect necessarily accompanies its cause, so necessary existence cannot belong to any other individuated existent. This is what he intends by this argument.

Abū ‘Abd Allāh al-Rāzī thought that his statement, “If its individuation is due to its being the Necessary Existent, then there is no other necessary existent,” referred to the first of the four cases in which, on the supposition that there are two necessary existents, he made necessity follow from individuation.

He said: “As for his statement, ‘If its individuation is not due to that, but to something else, then it is caused,’ this refers to the case in which he treated necessity as that to which the individuation is incidental.” He also said that the statement, “If that by which it is individuated is incidental to that, then it is due to a cause,” refers to this same case; that, in refuting it, he had said only, “If its individuation is not due to its being necessary, but to something else, then it is caused”; that he repeated this argument once more, adding the further explanation of its invalidity that he gave at the end; and that the presentation would have been more orderly had he included this argument when addressing the refutation of the second case.

I say: The matter is not as he supposed. Rather, the author first set out the supposition that entails the oneness of the Necessary Existent, then presented four cases on the supposition of its multiplicity and refuted them by saying: “As for the individuated Necessary Existent, if its individuation—that is, that