is everlasting, and so is its shade”—and He says:

“Indeed, this is Our provision; it will never run out”—

they thought that revelation had to be believed where it differed from the conclusions of rational thinkers. They did not realize that clear rational proof does not contradict authentic scriptural proof. Indeed, valid proofs cannot conflict, whether they are rational, derived from revelation, or a combination of the two. If two proofs conflict, this indicates that one or both are unsound.

Many of them came to accept that events could continue perpetually into the future, but not into the past. They advanced subsidiary arguments whose weakness their most discerning scholars recognized, as has been explained at length elsewhere. Their position commits them to holding that the Lord was once without power and then became possessed of power, without any new cause arising that would account for His becoming capable; and that He could not act or speak by His will, but then action became possible for Him without any cause arising to account for this new possibility.

When this is pointed out to them, they say, “He possessed power in pre-eternity, as He always had.” They are answered: “One cannot possess power over something while that very thing is impossible. Rather, having power over the impossible is itself impossible. One can have power only to do what is possible. Thus, if He has always possessed power, it has always been possible for Him to act.”

Since this was their foundational premise, they divided into three positions concerning Allah’s speech.

One group said: “Speech does not subsist in the Lord Himself; rather, His speech can only be created. For it must be either beginningless or originated, and it cannot be beginningless, because He speaks by His will and power, whereas what is beginningless does not come about through power and will. And if speech comes about