what does not exist can neither be seen nor heard; once it exists, it can be seen and heard. These relations are therefore newly originated.

If an ignorant person insists that what does not exist can be seen and heard, we reply: Allah, exalted is He, sees the nonexistent as nonexistent, not as existent. When it comes into existence, He sees it as existent, not as nonexistent, for seeing the existent as nonexistent, or vice versa, is an error. This entails what we have stated.

Even the philosophers—far removed though they are from this position—say that relations, namely being before, being after, and being with, exist in external reality. Thus Allah is with every newly originated thing, and that relational attribute has newly originated within His essence.

Abū al-Barakāt, one of their later thinkers, explicitly affirmed in al-Muʿtabar newly originated volitions and instances of knowledge within His essence, exalted is He, claiming that He cannot be acknowledged as the God of this world without accepting this position. He then said:

“It is obligatory to exalt Him above such exaltation and to declare Him transcendent above such declarations of transcendence.”