As for his explanation, “for beginningless existence belongs to Him,” the fact that beginningless existence belongs to Him is not what necessitates their having a beginning. His possessing an attribute does not prevent a created being from possessing that attribute in a manner appropriate to it. Thus, knowledge, life, speech, hearing, and sight belong to Him, while created beings also possess knowledge, life, speech, hearing, and sight. Allah Most High says:

“And honour belongs to Allah, His Messenger, and the believers.”
[Surah al-Munāfiqūn 8]

Explaining their being bound to having a beginning by saying that beginningless existence belongs to Him is therefore unsound. Rather, a created being has a beginning by virtue of its very essence and reality, just as it is subject to its Lord, made, poor, and dependent. These attributes of deficiency, which entail its need for Allah and Allah’s lordship over it, belong to it by virtue of its very reality.

His binding it to having a beginning entails that it is not beginningless, not capable of all things, not knowledgeable of all things, and not self-sufficient and independent of everything besides itself. Its lack of these attributes is not due to any existent factor, nor to Allah’s possessing them. Rather, it is impossible for it to possess these attributes. Nevertheless, a sound interpretation may be possible, as we shall explain later, if Allah Most High wills.

As for his statement, “Whatever manifests through a body is necessarily accompanied by an accident,” these words imply the existence of a body, something that manifests through the body, and an accident necessarily accompanying it. Yet according to those whose approach Abū al-Qāsim defended, and all the other theologians of kalām, there is nothing among created things