is inseparable from its existence; hence, were its motion to cease, it would perish.

Aristotle did not say that the First Cause originated the celestial spheres. Nor did he say that it necessitates its effects by its very essence, as some later philosophers, such as Ibn Sīnā and his like, maintain. Nor did he say that the celestial sphere is eternal yet contingent in itself. Rather, these philosophers shared the understanding of all other rational people: something contingent is that which can either exist or not exist, and only something brought into being can be of this kind. In their view, the celestial sphere is not contingent; rather, it is eternal and has always existed. The actual implication of their position is that its existence is necessary, without beginning or end.

For this reason, in most early works of speculative theology, the doctrine of the eternity of the world is attributed only to those who deny the Maker. But when philosophers such as Ibn Sīnā and his like put forward the view that the world is eternal and proceeds from an eternal cause that necessitates its effects by its very essence, this became another position among those who upheld the eternity of the world. Through it, they removed the apparent odiousness of their position arising from their denial of a Maker of the world. They also began using the expressions employed by Muslims, saying that the world is made, brought into being, and so forth. What they mean, however, is that it is an eternal, beginningless effect. They do not mean that Allah brought something into being after it had not existed. When they say that Allah is the Creator of everything, this is what they mean.

Later speculative theologians thus began mentioning this position alongside the well-known position of the speculative theologians concerning what it means for the world to have come into being—the position they attribute to the adherents of the religious communities, as explained above. Al-Shahrastānī, al-Rāzī, al-Āmidī, and others present the matter in this way.

And this principle, which the Jahmiyyah and the speculative theologians who followed them introduced—namely, the impossibility of