It may then be said: Our never having witnessed anything come into being except within time is comparable to our never having witnessed anything come into being except in a place. Just as the latter entails that every place requires another place, so the former entails that every time requires another time. At most, this establishes the absence of a parallel among the things we have witnessed. The mere absence of a parallel is no proof against the existence of something known through sense perception or reason. No rational person has ever said that something known to exist cannot be acknowledged unless it has an exactly matching counterpart.

This is like our never having witnessed anything without a creator: it does not follow that the Creator must have a creator. As the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “People will keep asking you questions until they say this.” Al-Bukhārī and Muslim both recorded it in their Sahīh collections, from ‘Urwa, from Abū Hurayra, and it was also narrated by