hadith, jurists, and Sufis accepted this premise. We shall grant it for the sake of argument and say: Suppose that He cannot bring anything into being until something comes to be within Him. You have offered no proof that something cannot come to be within Him, except to say: “The same argument applies to this new occurrence as to the worlds, and this new occurrence cannot take place unless a cause comes to be that necessitates it.”

We reply: Suppose that is so. Why, then, do you say that He does not bring about in Himself an act and a movement through which that effect comes into being? This is the view of various groups among the scholars of theology and jurisprudence, the majority of the scholars of hadith and Sufism, and others. It is also the view of groups among the earlier thinkers