by the method of accidents, they use it only to establish that whatever possesses those accidents is contingent, grounding this in composition. But they cannot argue from accidents that whatever possesses them has a temporal beginning; indeed, this contradicts their own position.

Each of the two groups attacks the other’s method and demonstrates its invalidity.

It is well known that the theologians who affirm attributes for Allah Most High are closer to Islam and the Sunnah than those who deny His attributes, and that those who deny His attributes but affirm that the heavens and the earth have a temporal beginning are closer to Islam and the Sunnah than those who maintain their pre-eternity. The closer someone is to Islam and the Sunnah, the less distant from the religion of the Muslims are the rational arguments with which he opposes the divine texts.

If the leading scholars have rejected these arguments, which are closer than others to reason and revelation, and have demonstrated that they are rationally unsound and forbidden by the revealed Law, then arguments that are still more remote and weaker must be even more unsound rationally and more strictly forbidden by the revealed Law.

The leading scholars have consistently maintained this position, including even the leading practitioners of rational inquiry among the theologians and philosophers. Thus, inferring from motion and rest that whatever moves or is at rest has a temporal beginning—indeed, inferring from accidents generally that the substances and bodies in which they subsist have a temporal beginning; inferring from the temporal origination of attributes that whatever possesses them has a temporal beginning; arguing from the composition of bodies out of atoms, and the like; and treating this as a means of knowing that the world has a temporal beginning, and of knowing