coming into being after not having existed, so that no created thing has existed alongside Allah from eternity, yet He has always acted,” this would not entail that any particular created effect has always existed alongside Him. It would entail only that effects, as a kind, have always existed, although each individual effect is originated: it did not exist and then came to exist alongside Him. Thus none of these things has existed alongside Allah from eternity.

ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz neither stated this nor committed himself to it. Indeed, he did not commit himself to any of these suppositions. Nor is any particular one of them binding upon him unless the other alternatives are assumed to be impossible. The point, however, is that he is not obliged to accept al-Marīsī’s contention that his position entails a created thing having always existed alongside Allah. Under the first three suppositions, neither any individual effect nor effects as a kind need have existed from eternity.

As for the fourth supposition, it entails only that effects as a kind have always existed, not any particular effect.

If this supposition is false, al-Marīsī has not presented a refutation of it, nor of any of the other suppositions. Were he to attempt to refute it, he could do so only by disproving an infinite succession of effects, as is the method of those speculative theologians who have rejected this.

But al-Marīsī and those who agree with him—who say:

“Allah creates created things without an act subsisting in Him,”

and say:

“Creation is the created thing,”

and say:

“All created things came into existence after not having existed, without any new act, intention, or anything whatsoever arising from Allah—or, indeed, from anything other than Him”—

say that