and bodies. Since they have been brought into being, they must have an originator. For if something brought into being were not dependent on an originator, writing would not depend on a writer, nor striking on someone who strikes. All of this is untenable, since something brought into being without an originator is as impossible as writing without a writer.

If something brought into being without an originator were possible, something brought into being without an act of origination would also be possible—and that is impossible.

Moreover, we see that some events precede others, while others come later. Were there no one to place some before others and others after them, those that occurred earlier would have no greater claim to being earlier than later, and those that occurred later would have no greater claim to being later than earlier. This demonstrates that they have an originator who orders them, placing some before others and others after them.”

The Judge had heard al-Khattābī’s treatise Dispensing with Speculative Theology and Its Practitioners in a reading before Masʿūd al-Sijzī, who transmitted it from ʿAlī ibn Sarī al-Sijistānī, from al-Khattābī. He mentioned that someone had raised objections to it.

For al-Khattābī had discussed dispensing with the argument that substances and bodies must have come into being because they are never free of temporal events, as explained above.

He said:

“As for those who affirm prophethood, Allah Most High has spared them the need for that.”