refuting the position of the other group. Undoubtedly, the position of these proponents of simultaneity is far more unsound, and more contrary to clear reason and authentic revelation, than that of the proponents of delay.

Neither group arrived at the third position, which is supported by clear reason, acknowledged by rational people generally, and attested by the Book, the Sunnah, and the statements of the early generations and the imams.

This position is that a fully operative cause necessarily entails its effect occurring immediately after it becomes fully operative, neither simultaneously with it nor after a delay. This is as when you divorce a woman and she becomes divorced, free a slave and he becomes free, break a vessel and it breaks, or cut a rope and it parts. The resulting emancipation and divorce are not simultaneous with the actual acts of divorcing and emancipating, such that they coexist with them; nor are they delayed after them. Rather, they follow immediately upon them, without a gap.

The effect may be said to be with its cause yet distinct from it, insofar as it follows immediately upon it without a gap. Likewise, it may be said to be after it and subsequent to it, insofar as it occurs only after the full causal act. Hence Allah, Most High, says:

“His command, when He wills something, is only to say to it, ‘Be,’ and it is.”

He, glorified be He, brings into being whatever He wills to bring into being. When He brings it into being, it exists immediately after His act of bringing it into being, without a gap. It does not exist simultaneously in time with that act, nor is it delayed after it with a temporal interval between them. Rather, it follows His act without a gap, just as the parts of motion and time adjoin one another. This is among the arguments establishing that everything other than Allah is originated, coming into existence after not having existed, even while affirming that He has always been acting and speaking. These matters are discussed at length elsewhere.