the position of the majority of Ahmad’s followers, such as Abū Ishāq ibn Shāqlā, Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Hāmid, Judge Abū Yaʿlā, and others. More than one Mālikī scholar has likewise stated this and identified it as the position of Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamāʿah. Some of these scholars explicitly affirmed the meaning of motion without using the word itself.

Those who affirm an eternal causal efficacy—namely, creation and bringing into being—while holding that the effect is temporally originated regard this as analogous to the existence of an eternal will while what is willed is temporally originated, as the speculative theologians and others who affirm the divine attributes maintain.

Abū al-Thanāʾ al-Urmawī’s answer thus accords with the position of these groups. He states:

“An attribute accruing to a thing depends only upon the existence of its bearer.”

Likewise, according to those who hold this view, eternal will depends only upon the existence of the willing agent, not upon what is willed. Similarly, power pertaining to future things depends upon the existence of the agent possessing that power, not upon its object. Their position concerning creation—which is the act and the causal efficacy—is the same.

This answer, however, is weak. For his statement—“A relational attribute accruing to a thing with respect to another depends only upon the existence of its bearer, for precedence is a relational attribute accruing to a thing with respect to what comes after it, even by many ages, although it is impossible for the earlier and the later to exist together”—is open to the following objection: you have made a universal claim and sought to establish it by a particular example. Thus, you have claimed that every attribute accruing to a thing with respect to another depends only upon the existence of its bearer