concerning Him, and his reports, peace be upon him, became proofs of the truth of all the other matters to which he called us: matters beyond the reach of our senses and the attributes of His action. His reports concerning these matters became a means of apprehending them and a path to knowing their true nature. The reports from him, peace be upon him, used as evidence for these matters were clearer in their evidentiary force than the accidents upon which the philosophers relied in their arguments, as did their followers among the Qadarīs and the people of innovation who departed from the way of the Messengers, peace be upon them.

This is because accidents cannot serve as evidence until numerous stages have been established, stages concerning which disagreement is protracted and discussion intricate. These include what is needed to establish their existence; recognizing the falsity of the specious arguments of those who deny them; knowing how they differ from substances, in that they do not subsist independently, nor can any of them do so; knowing that they do not persist; knowing that their kinds differ and that they cannot move from the loci in which they subsist; knowing that whatever cannot be free of them shares their status of having come into being; and knowing the proofs that establish this, and what