being devoid of all other accidents. Al-Ka‘bī and his followers said: ‘They may be devoid of spatial states, but cannot be devoid of colors.’”

He said:

“All who disagree with us nevertheless agree that substances cannot be devoid of accidents once they have received them. The argument against the atheists is therefore framed in terms of spatial states, since what we assert concerning them rests on self-evident knowledge. By the immediate intuition of reason, we know that substances capable of coming together and separating cannot be conceived as neither touching nor separate.

“This is further clarified by the following: if they come together at some future time, their coming together necessarily presupposes an earlier separation, provided that they are assumed to have existed before coming together. Likewise, if separation occurs, we necessarily know that it was preceded by their being together. Our purpose in seeking to establish the world’s temporal origination becomes clear through these spatial states.”