just as it is encompassed by the position of those who attribute necessary existence to several things and hold that everything else derives from them.

It is sometimes reported that a group of the ancients said:
“The parts of the world were scattered, and then the Creator assembled them.”

Yet these people may maintain that those parts are caused by the One whose existence is necessary in itself. For Ibn Sīnā did not mention this position held by the leading philosophers, their early predecessors, and their foremost authorities: that the matter of the world is eternal, whereas its formation originated in time. These people do not say that matter is uncaused; rather, they say that it is created and produced by the Creator.

He neither reported this position of the leading philosophers and their foremost authorities nor undertook to refute and invalidate it. Nor does his discussion contain anything that invalidates it.

They have stated that Aristotle was the first of these philosophers to maintain that the world’s formation is eternal. Such, then, is his account of their doctrines.

As for his refutation of the positions he reported, on the grounds that two necessarily existent beings cannot exist, it rests upon the denial of the attributes. This is his conception of divine oneness, whose falsity is already known and has been explained elsewhere.

He then proceeded to discuss the position of those who maintain that the world originated in time while denying that acts subsist in Him, and the position of those who maintain that it is eternal. He mentioned only these two positions alongside the preceding three, making five positions in all.

[Al-Rāzī’s discussion in his Commentary on al-Ishārāt]

Al-Rāzī said in his commentary on this:

“The tenth question concerns the views of the scholars regarding the world’s contingency and its origination in time.”

He then quoted Ibn Sīnā’s words and said in his commentary:

“I say: People fall into two groups: some affirm more than one necessarily existent being