He is told:

A created effect coming into being without any act or act of creation is even more impossible in reason. Nor does reason rule out the necessary implications of an act performed through power. Indeed, our knowledge that this is impossible is greater than our knowledge that acts cannot subsist in Him, even if someone calls them temporal occurrences.

This is clarified by the following: that a created thing requires an act of creation, and a separate effect requires an act, is known both through rational entailment and revealed testimony. For “agent” and “creator” are like “one who speaks,” “one who utters,” “one who wills,” “one who moves,” and other designations that necessarily imply qualities subsisting in those so designated.

When ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz’s argument against al-Marīsī became clear—that the Lord, exalted be He, must perform an act through His power—as he said to him:

“You are bound to say that He created without the act that proceeded from power. The act is not power, for power is an attribute of Allah. Of an attribute of Allah, one does not say, ‘It is Allah,’ nor does one say, ‘It is other than Allah.’”

ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz did not say that it is neither Allah nor other than Him. Rather, he said that one does not say it is Allah, and one does not say it is other than Him.

This statement of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz is the position of the imams of the Sunnah, such as Imam Ahmad and others, and it is also the position of Ibn Kullāb and other leading figures. However, a group of the followers of