through our senses without recourse to proof, while knowing others requires proof. We do not know them until we know the proof, our knowledge of which entails our knowledge of what it proves.

The knowledge of the Lord Most High is inseparable from His holy Essence, as is His power. He has acquired none of His holy attributes from another and has never needed anyone besides Himself in any respect. Rather, He is independent of everything besides Himself.

If it is supposed that His knowledge of what entails something is a condition for His knowledge of what is entailed—just as the existence of the former is a condition for the existence of the latter, and His bringing the former into being is a condition for His bringing the latter into being, just as His creation of a father, insofar as he is a father, is a condition for His creation of a son—for a son cannot be a son unless he has a father, so creating the son necessarily requires creating the father beforehand—then He, glorified be He, is the Creator of both what entails and what is entailed, and knows both. Everything besides Him is something He has created through His will and power. Thus, He needs nothing besides Himself in any matter.

When someone says, “His knowledge of one thing is a condition for His knowledge of another,” this means that His knowledge of the one does not exist without His knowledge of the other. It does not mean that His knowledge of one exists beforehand while the other knowledge is absent. A condition need not precede what is conditional upon it; rather, it must exist alongside it, unlike a cause.

Thus, if it is said, “His knowledge of one is not the cause of His knowledge of the other; He has not acquired His knowledge of one from His knowledge of the other, nor inferred one from the other,” this does not amount to denying that one of