And since this is so, Imam Ahmad based his argument on the fact that Allah Most High existed alone, distinct from creation. This argument addresses Muslims and the adherents of all other religious communities who acknowledge that He created the heavens and the earth in six days, and that they came into existence after not having existed. Given this, anyone who affirms His presence within creation affirms a presence that did not previously exist. By contrast, someone who does not acknowledge this does not affirm that He ever existed alone and separate from creation. This is undoubtedly a greater degree of disbelief and denial of the Creator, as exemplified by those among them who profess the identity of Allah and creation.

For these people may often be adherents of philosophy. Yet the misguided philosophers maintain that the world is eternal: either as an effect proceeding from a necessary cause, as Aristotle and his followers maintain, or as something uncaused, as others maintain. These people added to this the claim that He is the world itself or is within the world.

The Jahmiyyah whom Imam Ahmad and others like him debated were closer to reason and religion. They did not say that He is identical with existing things, nor that He has always been present within them. Nor did they openly declare that He is neither separate from the world nor present within it. Rather, they denied His particular relation to the Throne, saying that He is everywhere and is not in one place to the exclusion of another.

If He existed alone and then created creation, they must either say that He is a locus for creation, or say that He entered into creation, or