which they necessarily entail, whether those concomitants are established within the essence of the cause or separate from it. Thus, the presence of a multiplicity of effects within the essence of the one self-subsisting being, which precedes them in causality and existence, does not entail multiplicity in that being.”

In sum, the Necessary Existent is one, and His unity is not negated by the multiplicity of intelligible forms established within Him.

He said:

“This, then, is the exposition of the clarification. The remainder of the section is clear.”

He said:

“There is no doubt that affirming that the concomitants of the First are established within His essence amounts to saying that one and the same thing is both agent and recipient, and that the First possesses attributes that are neither relational nor negative, as the learned commentator mentioned”—meaning al-Rāzī—“and that He is the locus of His multiple contingent effects—exalted is He far above that! It also amounts to saying that His first effect is not separate from His essence, and that He, exalted is He, does not bring anything separate from Him into existence through His essence, but rather through the mediation of entities inhering