external reality, as some of them maintain, this would be among the clearest proofs of the unsoundness of their position and their misguided conception.

Abū al-Barakāt said:
“This, then, is what the Chief Shaykh said.”

He continued:
“His statement that, if He apprehends things from the things themselves, this must take one of two forms—either His essence is constituted by what He apprehends, or His apprehending is accidental to His essence—and that in either case He would not be necessarily existent in every respect, can be answered as follows:

“As for His essence being constituted in this way, the supposition is impossible, for the one who apprehends is not constituted by what he apprehends. To apprehend is to act, and acting occurs only after existence, with a posteriority in the order of being. How, then, can existence be constituted by what is subsequent to existence in the order of being?

“As for His apprehending being accidental to His essence, and the conclusion he draws from this that He would not be necessarily existent in every respect, this seems like the panegyrics of poets, or like