He also mentioned that many groups contradict themselves, affirming positions that contradict this proposition. We have no need to defend the proponents of falsehood on this point. We say that their assertion that one of two equivalent alternatives can prevail over the other without a determining cause demonstrates the falsity of their position, just as it demonstrates the falsity of the positions of the eternalist philosophers, the Jahmiyyah, and the Qadariyyah.

Thus, none of those implications requires an answer from us except what he attributed to the Muslims, namely, their statement that Allah brought the world into existence at a particular time rather than any other, without anything distinguishing that time from the others.

For a position attributed to the Muslims must be found in the Book of Allah or the Sunnah of His Messenger, or be something upon which the Muslims have reached consensus—even if it were only the consensus of the Companions. If the Muslims disagreed over it, it would not be permissible to attribute it to them all.

How, then, can this be attributed to them when it is neither in the Book of Allah nor in the Sunnah of His Messenger, and none of the early generations or imams of the Muslim community stated it? Nor is it agreed upon even among their speculative theologians. Rather, it is the position of certain groups adhering to the innovated speculative theology condemned by the early generations and the imams.

Other groups among them dispute this, saying that whatever comes into existence does so because of a cause entailing both its coming into existence and its occurrence at that particular time. At the same time, they affirm that Allah created the heavens and the earth and everything between them in six days, then rose over the Throne, as established by mass-transmitted scriptural texts. The disagreement concerning an infinite succession of effects is well known—indeed, concerning that which