or an end was Jahm. There is no dispute that he was the first to claim that Paradise and Hell would cease to exist.

Even more misguided than these are the Sabian philosophers, who maintain that the world, like the Maker, has neither a beginning nor an end, yet affirm a limit to the world’s essence but not to the Maker’s. Thus, they equated the world with the Creator in having no beginning, while distinguishing between them with regard to their essences. Then there are these Jahmīs, who affirmed limits to the world at both its beginning and its end, discussed its cessation just as they discussed its coming into existence, and denied both kinds of limit with respect to the Creator.

This is clarified by the tenth argument, which is as follows: It has become clear that space and time, and what is measured by them, are alike with regard to whether or not they necessarily accompany an existent, and with regard to the division of existents into the two categories mentioned in both cases—whether existents are classified in terms of their own essence or in terms of their relation to the other category. Thus, if it is said that an existent is either self-subsisting or subsists in another,