These arguments and others like them establish the existence of a beginningless Necessary Existent that is not made. The question, however, is how to identify it, for most of the Dahriyya say: “It is the world, or something subsisting in it.”

Moreover, the dependence of the contingent upon the necessary, of what has come into being upon the beginningless, and of what is made upon a maker is a necessary premise. Some speculative thinkers nevertheless seek to prove this premise, as well as the proposition that neither of the two alternatives for a contingent being can prevail over the other without a determining factor. The majority consider their necessary character sufficient in both cases.

The devotional method yields knowledge through spiritual discipline and purity of soul, for necessary knowledge then arises in the heart. Thus, when ‘Izz al-Dīn ibn ‘Abd al-Salām came to Shaykh Ismā‘īl al-Kūrānī seeking knowledge of Allah—having pursued the method of speculative theology—the shaykh said to him:

“You say that Allah is known through proof, whereas we say that He made Himself known to us, and so we knew Him.”

Likewise, when Ibn al-Khatīb and his Mu‘tazilī companion asked Najm al-Dīn al-Kubrā about knowledge of certainty, he said:

“It consists of impressions that come upon souls, which the souls are unable to repel.”

He thus answered them that, for us, knowledge of certainty is attained necessarily, not through reasoning. This is a good answer.

Necessary knowledge is that which binds a person’s soul so inescapably that he cannot free himself from it. Unless someone employing syllogistic reasoning acquires necessary knowledge at the outset, he must base his reasoning and syllogism on necessary premises. Knowledge then results for him.

For this reason, a number of scholars, including Abū al-Ma‘ālī al-Juwaynī, said that all knowledge is necessary