or any of those who followed them in righteousness, who are the best of this community and the foremost in knowledge and faith. This method was only introduced into Islam after the first century, once the era of the leading Followers—indeed, even those of intermediate rank—had ended.

How, then, can it be said that accepting the Messenger as truthful depends on this method, when the most knowledgeable and virtuous of those who believed him neither called people by it nor mentioned it; it was never mentioned to them; no one transmitted it from them; and no one spoke of it in their time?

[Fourth]

The fourth argument:

It should be said: Neither this Quran nor the Sunnah transmitted from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace—whether through mass-transmitted or non-mass-transmitted reports—contains anything indicating this method, let alone the method itself.

None of these texts states that the Creator had never acted or spoken by His will, and that what subsequently occurred did so without any newly arising cause. Nor do they mention corporeality, spatial occupation, or direction, either to deny or affirm them. How, then, can belief in the Messenger entail this, when the Messenger neither taught it nor made belief in him dependent upon it?

[Fifth]

The fifth argument:

These three methods—the method of the temporal origination of bodies—are founded on the impossibility of the Lord having always acted, and the impossibility of His having always spoken by His will. Indeed, they are fundamentally based on the impossibility of His having always possessed the power to do either. It is well known that most rational people, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, dispute this and say:

“This is a false claim.”

As for the argument from the contingency of bodies, it is based on the claim that whatever possesses attributes is contingent, on the premise that whatever is composite is contingent, and on the denial of attributes. This is a method introduced by Ibn Sīnā and others like him,