and a religious innovation, and that there is no need for it, given the length and obscurity of its premises and the disputes they involve.

This is precisely our point: he reported the agreement of the early generations that this method is unnecessary.

As for its invalidity, that is a separate matter which his words do not address. Hence, the method he himself adopted was of the same kind.

[Al-Shahrastānī on the world’s coming into being in Nihāyat al-Iqdām]

Al-Shahrastānī said concerning the world’s coming into being:

“The theologians have two approaches to this question. The first is to establish that the world came into being; the second is to refute the claim that it is beginningless. As for the first, most of them have sought to establish this by establishing the existence of accidents”—as mentioned above.

He said:

“As for the second, our shaykh Abū al-Hasan al-Ashʿarī, may Allah be pleased with him, followed the approach of refutation, saying: ‘If we suppose substances to be beginningless, they must be in one of the following states: either combined, separated, neither combined nor separated, both combined and separated at once, or some combined and others separated. In short, they cannot be devoid of combination and separation