together with anything else under a universal proposition whose instances are on an equal footing. Hence the Quran’s method—which is also the method of the early generations and the imams—is not to employ, in matters concerning Allah, analogical or syllogistic reasoning that places its instances on an equal footing. Rather, they employ a fortiori reasoning in both forms, for to Allah belongs the highest description. Thus, if He—glorified be He—and others are included under a universal proposition, such as:

“What subsists independently does not require a substrate as an accident does, for example,”

or:

“Every existing thing has a distinctive property that nothing else shares,”

or similar propositions, then He—glorified be He—has a greater claim to such things than all other existing things. He has a greater claim to independence from a substrate than anything else that subsists independently, and a greater claim than any existing thing to selecting one who shares His distinctive attributes.

Likewise, when analogical reasoning is employed, every perfection that an existing thing deserves by virtue of its existence is something the Necessary Existent has a greater claim to being declared free of. He has a greater claim than any existing thing to being free of the characteristics of nonexistence, its varieties, its likenesses, and whatever necessarily entails it.

And if a positive reality, such as sight, relates only to existing things and cannot relate to anything nonexistent—since nonexistence cannot cause existence—and if every