the kind found in their own discourse. Had they been granted reason and an understanding of what the Messenger—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—brought, they would have recognized that it encompasses every good.

As for the unsoundness of their methods that contradict the revealed texts, this is evident to every intelligent and accomplished person, whether among them or others.

It is enough to know that their mainstay in the foundations of religion is either the argument from accidents, the objections to which are already known, or the argument from necessity, which entails a necessary existent.

We have explained elsewhere that this approach does not establish the existence of a necessary existent. It can do so only if the existence of a contingent being that entails a necessary existent is established.

Yet their conception of the contingent encompasses both the eternal and that which comes into being. Thus they include the beginninglessly eternal within the designation “contingent,” thereby contradicting all other rational thinkers, including their own predecessors, while also contradicting themselves.

On this understanding, they cannot establish any proof that what is contingent in this sense needs an agent.

They themselves have raised various objections to this approach without being able to answer them correctly, as has been explained at length in the appropriate place.

Moreover, at most it establishes a necessary existent that is not distinct from created things. Hence many of them came to hold that necessary existence is not distinct from created things.

Hence many of them came to hold that necessary existence is the very existence of created things. Thus many