For this reason, Abū Hāmid al-Ghazālī and other Muslims—indeed, even Ibn Rushd and philosophers like him—have demonstrated the unsoundness of their claims concerning this oneness and the invalidity of their denial of these realities, which they termed “composition.” They have no evidence whatsoever for this except what they imagined the expression “Necessary Existent” to imply in the sense they themselves conceived, not in the sense established by proof. Thus, their argument rested on ambiguous expressions which, once clarified, reveal the unsoundness of their reasoning.

For this reason, Ibn Sīnā needed to establish the Maker’s oneness even to establish His existence, let alone His acts. He said:

“Others said: Rather, this perceptible existence is an effect.

They then divided into different groups. Some maintained that its underlying basis and material are uncaused, but that its fashioned form is caused. These have thus posited two necessary existents, and you are well aware that this is impossible.

Others ascribed necessary existence to two things, or to several things, and held that everything else proceeds from them. The same judgment applies to them as to the preceding group.”

It may be said to him: Those who ascribe existence to two things or several things include those who hold that its underlying basis and material are uncaused, for whatever is not caused is necessary in itself. These therefore constitute a single category, insofar as they posit more than