this cannot be true, their claim that temporal events proceed, with or without an intermediary, from an essence in which no act subsists is invalid.

If you mean the second, then saying that the essence characterized by an act subsisting in it is sufficient to produce its effects does not entail that those effects are eternal, since they are conditional upon the act. Nor does this imply that the essence depends upon anything other than itself, because its act, which is a condition for its effects, necessarily accompanies its essence, just as its attributes necessarily accompany its essence. Yet what necessarily accompanies it may be a kind, such as successive acts, or a particular reality, such as life, which has always existed and always will.

This is the argument upon which their predecessors and successors rely, though they vary its wording and meanings.

[The words of al-Suhrawardī, who was put to death, in al-Talwīhāt]

The words of al-Suhrawardī, who was put to death, in al-Talwīhāt

An example is what al-Suhrawardī, who was put to death, says in his al-Talwīhāt:

“Nothing can proceed from the Necessary Existent after not having existed. For if the determining factor is His very self, or is conceived in terms of His attributes, and is everlasting, then its determining efficacy and the existence of the effect must likewise be everlasting. If He did not act and then acted, something requisite for His action must have come into being, or something incompatible with it must have ceased to exist. The same argument then applies to that, without ever coming to a stop.

“Thus, no new volition occurs to the Necessary Existent. Everything that newly arises, and that on account of which it arises, are alike in requiring a newly occurring determining factor. Prior to all existence, there is no