I say:

These are the four claims mentioned by Abū al-Ma‘ālī at the beginning of al-Irshād, except that he substituted accidents for motions and states of rest. Yet he established the temporal origination of accidents only through the temporal origination of states (akwān), and established the latter only through conjunction and separation.

As for the argument from motion and rest adopted by the Mu‘tazilah, this is the argument employed by al-Rāzī. It is stronger than the approach followed by al-Āmidī and others, who argued from accidents generally, on the premise that an accident does not persist for two instants. This is the weakest of these approaches. The argument from motion is the strongest, while the argument from conjunction and separation lies between them. The latter is the approach of Abū al-Hasan al-Ash‘arī, the Karrāmiyyah, and others who say that He is a body.

Abū al-Husayn then argued for these four claims in a manner similar to what has preceded.

It was said:

“If it is asked, ‘What is the proof that motion is distinct from the body?’

“The answer is: If the motion of a body were the body itself, then when its motion ceased, the body would cease to exist. If the motion of a body were the body itself, proof of the temporal origination of its motion would constitute proof of the temporal origination of the body. Thus, if the motion of a body were the body itself, it would be easier to demonstrate the temporal origination of the body.”