which is body—just as the human soul separates from its body at death, then, in their view, it becomes an intellect incapable of motion. His supposition of a soul separate from body and perpetually in motion is therefore not something they affirm, nor is there any evidence for it. His supposition thus remains one neither maintained by his opponent nor supported by evidence. This resembles the doctrine of the Harnānians, but is not identical to it.

They say that there are five eternal entities: the Lord, the soul, matter, time, and space. However, they do not say that the soul has always been in motion. Rather, they say that it came to turn its attention toward hyle, which is matter, and grew to love it passionately. The best way to free it from matter was to let it taste the bitter consequences of this attachment. So He fashioned the world and placed the soul together with bodies, so that it might taste the burning heat and bitter consequences of this union and long to escape it.

For this reason, Muhammad ibn Zakariyyā al-Rāzī says: “There is no pleasure whatsoever in this world. Rather, the soul remains tormented until it escapes, and its repose lies in deliverance.”

He was once attending the gathering of a dignitary and illustrated this by the sound that escapes involuntarily from a person’s anus, representing it as coming from that dignitary. Al-Kaʿbī said to him: “You have become entangled in grave difficulties and have not extricated yourself. You were merely trying to avoid an event occurring without a cause. Yet you may be asked: What necessitated the soul’s turning toward hyle at that particular time, rather than before or after it? This, too, is an event without a cause.”