a person infers the existence of Allah Most High from his own self is that he was once a drop of semen, then passed through successive stages until reaching full development. This progression and transformation must therefore have something that brings it about. Nor was one time more appropriate for the change than another.

Whatever brings about this transformation must do so either necessarily, without choice, through nature or a mould, or by way of testing, in which case it is an agent.

That agent must be either the human being himself or something else. If something else, it must be either of his own kind or of a different kind. If of his own kind, it must be either his parents or someone else. If it is of a different kind, that is our position. We shall refute all the other possibilities and establish this last one.

The human being cannot have acquired his form merely because the womb acts as a mould: the question of who shaped that mould is the same as the question of who shaped the human being. Moreover, a mould determines only the outer shape of whatever is placed in it. What, then, determined the form of the human being’s interior and placed his internal parts in their proper positions?

Nor can what brings about the human being’s transformation and formation be a nature devoid of knowledge and choice, for the human being displays greater order and wisdom than the construction of a house or the crafting of a crown. Just as these cannot be produced by something devoid of knowledge, neither can the human being. Do you not see that human organs are apportioned according to their functions and set in their proper places? Nor can the human being himself be