Thus, when some of the Muʿtazilah of Basra say:

“Bodies are annihilated by bringing annihilation into existence without a substrate, just as they are brought into existence through the origination of a will without a substrate,”

and commit themselves to an accident arising without a substrate, to temporal occurrences arising without a newly arisen cause, and to some temporal occurrences arising without a will, and say, “A contrary ceases to exist only when its opposite arises,” these opponents reply:

“Likewise, if we posit a beginningless body moving after having been at rest, that rest would cease through the origination of its opposite, motion; and that motion would arise by the same means through which what exists separately arises.”

To those who say:

“An accident ceases to exist through the origination of an act of annihilation,”

—as is one of the two positions held by the affirmationist theologians among the Ashʿariyyah, the Karrāmiyyah, and others—they reply:

“That rest ceases to exist through the origination of an act of annihilation. The account of the cause of this annihilation arising is the same as the account of how the cause of bringing something into existence arises.”

And if they say:

“Rest passes away little by little, just as motion passes away little by little,”

—as they say likewise concerning all other accidents, this being one of the two positions held by the affirmationists among the Ashʿariyyah and others—they reply:

“Rest, then, is like motion: just as motion consists of successive parts, so too does rest.”

There is no doubt that these consequences inescapably follow for those who argue from motion and rest. Such matters have become confused only because one of these thinkers builds upon a sound premise in one place, yet commits himself to what contradicts it elsewhere; thus there becomes apparent