and knows that He has no need of it. His self-sufficiency cannot be known until it is known that He is not a body; nor can it be known that He is not a body unless it is known that He is eternal. Nor can it be known that He is eternal, or that He knows every evil, unless it is known that He knows all things. This cannot be known unless it is known that He knows by virtue of His essence. Nor can it be known that He confirms and punishes unless it is known that He is powerful and living. We cannot know One possessing these attributes unless His essence is known. His essence can be known only by inferring it from His acts, for it is neither directly observed nor known immediately, and there is no way to know it except through His acts.”

He said:

“One must therefore discuss these matters in order to know the truth of what the messengers brought.”

He then discussed the origination of bodies, basing his argument on the proposition that whatever does not precede temporal events must itself have a beginning. He based this, in turn, on the proposition that if each event has a beginning, it is impossible for the events collectively to have no beginning, since they are nothing other than their individual members—just as it is impossible for each individual among the Zanj to be black while they are not all black.

[Ibn Taymiyyah’s Commentary]

He has thus made the whole religion depend upon this sequence, which itself rests upon a premise disputed by the majority of rational people, both adherents of religious traditions and others.

These are what they regard as the foundations of religion. Yet the vast majority of Muslims disagree with them on this—indeed, so do the majority of rational people throughout the world. Moreover, it is self-evidently known as part of the religion of Islam that