the world is in a void surrounding it is false or is not self-evident. Moreover, his positing this void entails something they regard as unacceptable: that it must be eternal, since, if it were created, it would require a void.

I say: He has conceded the point at issue by accepting as sound the premise that will is what singles out one of two like things. As for his objection concerning the world, that relates to the first premise.

It should be understood that two things gave these eternalists the upper hand over the Jahmiyyah. First, they introduced novel arguments and doctrines concerning the foundations of religion that contradict the Quran and Sunnah, and thereby contradicted the sound rational principles that their opponents or others use to explain matters. Second, they shared with them unsound rational doctrines and syllogisms, as well as the distortion of words from their proper places.

For when they joined them, to the extent that they did, in far-fetched interpretations of the texts concerning the divine attributes—interpretations contrary to the consensus of the early generations of the Muslim community and its leading scholars—this furnished their opponents with an argument for similarly reinterpreting the texts concerning the Resurrection and other matters. This philosopher argued in precisely this way, as is also mentioned by Abū ‘Abd Allāh al-Rāzī and those before him. Indeed, the eternalists even told them: “What is said of the verses concerning the Resurrection is just like what is said of the verses concerning