the powers Allah has placed within living beings—the very faculties by which an animal performs its acts, just as a servant acts by his own capacity.

Conversely, whoever imagines that these secondary causes create their effects independently has fallen into polytheism, attributing Allah’s action to something other than Him. Every cause is itself dependent on another cause for its result to appear, and each can be blocked by an opposing factor unless Allah removes that impediment. In all existence there is not a single entity that can act entirely on its own, save Allah alone. The Exalted says, “And of everything We have created pairs, so that you may take heed” (51:49)—that is, so you may recognize that the Creator of all pairs is One.

[The ignorance of those who claim that from the One only one proceeds]

Hence, whoever asserts that nothing issues from Allah except one entity—arguing that “from the One only one can proceed”—is simply ignorant. In the whole universe there is no being from whom anything, whether one thing or two, proceeds by itself, except Allah, who has created all the pairs: of what the earth produces, of themselves, and of that which they do not yet know.