their weakness has already been discussed at length elsewhere, even though his account encompasses what other theologians—the Mu‘tazilīs, Ash‘arīs, and Karrāmīs—and those jurists who agreed with them, among the followers of the four imams and others, have said on this matter.

[Al-Āmidī’s Method of Arguing for the Temporal Origination of the World]

The point at issue was what they said concerning the finitude of events. Hence, when addressing the temporal origination of the world, al-Āmidī did not rely on any of these approaches. Rather, he exposed their weakness and advanced an argument equally weak or weaker: bodies are never without accidents; accidents do not persist for two instants and therefore come into existence; and whatever is never without things that come into existence must itself come into existence.

This argument rests on two premises: first, that any accident existing at a given instant does not persist for two instants—though most rational thinkers maintain that this contradicts sensory experience and self-evident knowledge—and second, that a succession of events without a beginning is impossible. The discussion of this has already been presented. Many of the objections by which al-Āmidī showed the weakness of his predecessors’ arguments for the temporal origination of bodies agree with those mentioned by al-Urmawī, although al-Āmidī preceded him.

Either al-Urmawī read his discussion, judged it correct, and agreed with him; or one thought happened to coincide with another, just as one hoofprint matches another; or al-Urmawī and al-Āmidī took all or part of this from the writings of al-Rāzī or someone else.

This last possibility is more likely, for these two and others like them had consulted his books containing these