in their actions, for their differing actions preclude their producing a single effect and a single world.

His interpretation of this verse is of the same kind as his interpretation of the other verse.

He said:

“As for the words of the Most High,

‘Had there been other gods alongside Him, as they claim, they would have sought a way to the Lord of the Throne’ [al-Isrā’: 42],

this is like the first verse: that is, it demonstrates the impossibility of two gods whose action is one and the same.

The meaning of this verse is that, if there were in the heavens and the earth gods besides Allah, capable of bringing the world into being and creating it, other than the existing God, such that another god’s relation to this world were that of its creator, that god would necessarily be with Him upon the Throne.

There would then be two identical beings standing in the same relation to a single locus. Yet two identical beings cannot stand in the same relation to a single locus, because if the relation is one and the same, the being so related must also be one and the same. I mean their being in that locus, although God’s relation to the Throne is the reverse of this