whenever He wills and however He wills. It therefore shows that speech is eternal in kind, not that He has not spoken by His will and power, or that speech is a single, eternal entity.

Likewise, the argument for the eternity of agency advanced by the “philosophers” who maintain that the world is eternal supports only the position of the early generations. Both those who argue for the eternity of a particular product of His action—the celestial sphere—and those who argue for the eternity of His particular speech offer sound proofs that do not establish their intended conclusions. Rather, those proofs support only the position of the early generations who followed the Messenger.

It thus becomes clear that sound “rational proofs,” from whichever group they come, establish the truthfulness of the Messenger and confirm what he conveyed, rather than contradicting his words. They are among Allah’s signs that establish the truthfulness of the prophets, concerning which Allah said:

“We will show them Our signs in the horizons and within themselves until it becomes clear to them that it is the truth.”

They also form part of the balance that Allah Most High sent down. The same applies to the arguments of the “Muʿtazilah and Karrāmiyyah” and others, as we shall explain, Allah willing. For “the purpose here” is to discuss the arguments relied upon by the leading speculative thinkers among the Ashʿarīs and those like them, and among the philosophers and those like them. These two groups oppose one another in both East and West. Many people sometimes side with one group and sometimes with the other, such as al-Ghazālī, al-Rāzī, al-Āmidī, and others like them.

The purpose here is to explain how “rational proofs” support the position of the early generations, which is what the Quran and Sunnah teach.

We therefore say:

As for (the first argument, namely their assertion that if He were not speaking in beginningless eternity, He would have been characterized by its opposite—either silence or muteness—because He is living, and a living being, if not speaking, would be