the Lord is a simple existence, possessing neither attributes nor action. Rather, they affirmed attributes subsisting in His essence and that He acts through successive wills subsisting in His essence: one will after another.

These thinkers are even further from being able to prove that anything in the world is eternal. For, with an agent who acts successively through wills subsisting in His own essence, they have no proof that any of His effects has always coexisted with Him. It is possible that He brought one thing into being after another, and that He created this world from matter that existed before it, as the Messengers have reported.

Thus, Allah Most High states in the Quran that He created the heavens and the earth and all that is between them in six days, then rose over the Throne. He also states that He, glorified be He,

“turned toward the heaven while it was smoke and said to it and to the earth, ‘Come, willingly or unwillingly.’ They said, ‘We come willingly.’ Then He formed them into seven heavens in two days and ordained for each heaven its task. And We adorned the lowest heaven with lamps and safeguarded it. That is the determination of the Almighty, the All-Knowing.”

He says in the other verse:

“Then He turned toward the heaven and fashioned them into seven heavens. And He has knowledge of all things.”

He thus states that He fashioned them into seven heavens in two days and that the heaven was smoke—that is, water vapour—as explained in several transmitted reports: that He created the heaven from