Those who censure this method are of two kinds.

The first reproach it because they deem it an innovation within Islam. They know that the Prophet—may God bless him and grant him peace—never summoned people to it, nor did the Companions, for it is lengthy, hazardous, and riddled with objections and counter-objections. One who ventures into it is like a sailor on the sea in the midst of a raging storm. This was the stance of al-Ashʿarī when he criticized it, and of al-Khaṭṭābī, al-Ghazālī, and others who disapproved of it without openly declaring it null and void.

The second group condemns it because it contains false positions that fail to achieve the desired end and, in fact, undermine it. This is the view of the leading ḥadīth scholars and the majority of the early generations.

When the philosophers perceived that this argument was the chief support of the mutakallimūn for establishing the world’s origination and proving the existence of the Maker, they detected its vulnerable point—the assertion that an endless succession of events is impossible. They said: “This line of reasoning implies that the Maker was eternally inactive in speech and deed until He produced speech and action for no reason whatsoever. Plain reason attests to the impossibility of that, and you possess no prophetic texts in its favor.

“As for God’s statement that He created the heavens and the earth in six days, it indicates—so we claim—that He fashioned them from pre-existent matter, just as He said: ‘Then He turned to the heaven while it was smoke and said to it and to the earth, "Come, willingly or unwillingly." They said, "We come willingly."’ [Q 41:11]. The beginning of the Torah conveys the same meaning. Even though this report contradicts our own doctrine of the world’s eternity, it offers no support for your notion that the Maker remained inactive with respect to creation.”

At this point, we reply as follows