every effect; and everything other than Him is an effect of His, either through an intermediary or without one. It would therefore follow that nothing could come into existence in the world.

Furthermore, any events that subsequently come into existence require a complete cause concurrent with them. This would entail an infinite regress of causes, or of the completion of causes and effects, within a single instant. This is invalid according to clear reason and the agreement of rational people. If, however, it is supposed that the Lord was not a complete cause from eternity, their position is invalidated.

Another view holds that the effect must follow its complete cause after a delay, as most speculative theologians maintain. This entails either that a cause becomes complete after not having been complete, without any newly arising cause, or that events come into existence without a complete cause, and that a contingent thing’s existence gains preference over its nonexistence without a complete determining factor.

This is the position of many speculative theologians. Some say that an agent endowed with power gives preference to one of two things within its power without a determining factor. Others say that it gives preference through its beginningless, eternal will.

Among both groups are those who say that preference is given where preponderance is preferable but not necessary. This is the position of Mahmūd al-Khwārazmī among the former, and of Muhammad ibn al-Haytham al-Karrāmī and others among the latter. For the Karrāmiyya, together with the Ashʿariyya and the Kullābiyya, maintain that the determining factor is the beginningless, eternal will, while also maintaining that will does not necessitate what is willed.

Some of them, however, say that it is in the nature of will to give preference without any advantage warranting that preference, even when the two alternatives are equal, as