the same category as created beings’ acts of bringing things into being. The reasoning they have presented does not establish this without further evidence, since a universal proposition indicates only what is shared. Moreover, their inference points merely to some entity described as bringing things into being. In short, this inference provides no knowledge of what is unique to His lordship.

Thus, what the Quran declares—that He is the Lord of all worlds, the Creator of everything, and similar descriptions—conveys more about His lordship than this inference does, in ways there is not room to discuss here. For no one else is Lord in the absolute sense, nor Creator. Hence, when the Quran affirms His making of the world, it affirms it in the manner unique to Him, rather than describing Him by a term that indicates only a shared attribute, as these people do when they compare His bringing things into being with their own.

As for the other group, they gain only an acknowledgment of the existence of a necessarily existent being in terms of something shared by Him and all other existing things. What this group knows is therefore further from knowledge of Allah and what is unique to Him than what the former group knows. For describing Him as bringing things into being does touch upon His lordship and His action, even though they have treated Him and animals as sharing in this. The latter, however, have treated Him and all other existing things as sharing in existence by affirming that He exists. Their then distinguishing Him by the necessity of His existence is like the former group’s distinguishing Him as the One who brought the world into being.