that He has always been so, or that this kind of thing came into existence after not having existed? There are two positions.

Another group says that none of these things subsists in Him. Can they nevertheless continue in an unending succession outside Him? There are two positions.

Within each of these two groups, there is disagreement over whether these things can exist without a substrate in which they subsist. There are two positions.

Among those who face the qiblah and hold that an infinite succession of newly arising things is possible, some say that these things subsist in Him; others say that they arise without a substrate; and others say that they arise in a substrate other than Him.

Among those who face the qiblah and reject this possibility, some say that these things subsist for Him and have a beginning; others say that they arise, subsisting in something other than Him, and have a beginning; and others say that they arise without a substrate and without a beginning.

We have already presented the argument of those who deny that things subject to His power and will subsist in Him, along with the arguments of those who challenged it.

We shall now present the argument of those who reject an infinite succession of effects, along with the arguments of some of those who oppose them among those who face the qiblah.

This disagreement is found among the various groups generally, and even within a single group. For Abū al-Thanāʾ al-Urmawī, in his epitome of Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Rāzī’s al-Arbaʿīn (The Forty), presented objections to this that are suited to