And Allah, glorified and exalted is He, knows best.

The purpose here is to draw attention to the unsoundness and inconsistency of the arguments of those eternalists who deny the Maker, exalted is He, and to the Jahmiyyah’s sharing some of their unsound principles, as well as to the arguments of those eternalists who affirm Him.

We have already cited Abū al-Ma‘ālī’s statement that the specious arguments of the eternalists fall into four categories.

The first is their attempt to undermine the proof mentioned by Abū al-Ma‘ālī: the argument from accidents, which the Mu‘tazilah and those speculative theologians who followed them used to establish that bodies came into existence. Elsewhere, we have cited the statements of leading Muslim scholars concerning this method: forbidding it, expressing disapproval of it, and refuting it.

He said:

“The second category concerns attempts to deny the Maker. They pursue two approaches here:

The first is that affirming a self-subsisting being who transcends all spatial orientation is inconceivable.

The second concerns questions of justice and permissibility, and the assertion that one who is wise