in the form of blameworthy deeds and innovations that are not prescribed, or the illnesses and the like that befall a person. Allah, Glorified and Exalted, must be declared free of anything beyond these that involves any deficiency—how much more, then, must He be declared free of these things themselves! Yet when the Muʿtazilah said that He is free of accidents and temporal events, their sole intention was to deny His attributes and acts. According to them, no knowledge, power, will, mercy, love, pleasure, joy, creating, beneficence, justice, approach, coming, descent, rising over, or any other attribute or act of His subsists in Him.

The vast majority of Muslims disagree with them on this. Some groups dispute their position regarding the attributes but not the acts; others dispute it regarding some attributes but not others. Some dispute their position regarding the beginningless act, saying that His act is beginningless even though what it produces comes into existence, analogous to the position held by some concerning the will. These positions, their proponents, and their arguments are discussed at length elsewhere.

The purpose here is to indicate the main lines of people’s responses to the aforementioned question. When people say to this second group:

“If you affirm wisdom that comes into existence after not having existed, you must accept an infinite regress,”

they reply: “The question of this wisdom coming into existence is like that of all the other things He has brought into existence. We are addressing someone who concedes to us that He brought things into existence after they had not existed. Thus, if we say that He brought them into existence with a wisdom that has come into existence, he would have no right to