perfection. Allah Most High says:

“Everything will perish except His Face.”

And He Most High says:

“Everyone upon the earth will perish.”

“And there will remain the Face of your Lord, Owner of Majesty and Honour.”

Yet it is “these negators” whose position entails that He has changed. For they say that, in pre-eternity, it was not possible for Him to say anything or to speak by His will and power; this was impossible for Him and beyond His ability. Then action became possible for Him, so that He could act.

They hold two views concerning “speech.” Those who affirm speech in its ordinarily understood sense and say that He speaks by His will and power maintain that speech became possible for Him after having been impossible for Him. Those who do not attribute speech to Him in its ordinarily understood sense, but instead say that He speaks without will or power—as the Kullābiyyah maintain—have affirmed an unintelligible kind of speech in which no Muslim preceded them. Rather, before them, the Muslims held “two views”: the early generations and Ahl al-Sunnah said that He speaks by His will and power and that His speech is uncreated. The “Jahmiyyah” said that it is created by His power and will. These people, however, said that He speaks without His will and power, and that His speech is one single thing inseparable from His essence: letters, or letters and sounds, that have no beginning and are inseparable from His essence, as has been explained at length elsewhere.

And (the point is that all those who deny that the Lord has always been able to do whatever He wills, and who say that this entails the existence of an infinite succession of events, which is impossible, maintain that action became possible for Him after having been impossible for Him. What their position really amounts to is that He