His being dependent for His existence on anything else—exalted is He—that is impossible. Thus the distinction is clear.”

He should be told: You and all creation acknowledge that the world’s being in a spatial location and a direction does not entail its dependence on an existing spatial location that is independent of the world. No rational person has ever maintained this, for it would entail an infinite regress. Since reason and common agreement establish that the world, in occupying space, has no need of an existing spatial location external to it, the Creator of the world is all the more entitled to be free of such a need. Whoever says that, in occupying space, He would depend on something existing outside Him has not been content merely to place Him on a par with the creation; rather, he has deemed the creation superior to Him in self-sufficiency. Exalted is Allah, far above what the wrongdoers say!

As for his further statement in reply: “We have demonstrated through conclusive proofs that spatial locations are existing things, so there no longer remains, with regard to