I say:

This answer is better than the one al-Urmawī presented and described as brilliant. Al-Urmawī took it from al-Rāzī’s al-Matālib al-‘Āliya, where the latter presented it and said:

“This is the brilliant answer.”

Al-Qushayrī al-Misrī agreed with him on this. The present answer, however, is sounder according to both revelation and reason.

As for revelation, this answer holds that everything other than Allah came into being, whereas the other position affirms intellects and souls eternally existing alongside Allah, exalted is He. The difference between the two positions is well known to the adherents of the various religions and revealed laws.

As for reason, al-Urmawī’s position affirms contingent entities in which successive events occur without anything new arising from the Necessary Existent. This entails events coming into being without anything bringing them into being. For if that which is necessary in itself is a cause that necessarily entails its effect, none of its effects can come into existence later than it.

By contrast, what al-Abharī stated entails only that the Necessary Existent necessarily entails its effects one after another. This is a point on which they agree, for it involves nothing more than a succession of effects, and al-Abharī