brought into being. This very position gave the “eternalist philosophers,” who hold that the world has always existed, leverage against them. For the position they adopted and claimed necessarily entailed that the world came into being actually contradicts the world’s coming into being; indeed, it contradicts establishing the existence of the Maker. They thus sought to defend Islam by means incompatible with the religion of Islam. This is why the early generations so frequently condemned such reasoning: it is the foundation of the “condemned speculative theology” censured by the early generations of the Muslim community and its imams.

“This is because anything whose existence and nonexistence are both possible can exist only through a cause that necessarily entails its existence. If it could exist without such a cause, created things—whose existence and nonexistence are both possible—could have come into existence without an agent. Contingent things therefore require a necessarily existent being through whom they come to exist. When the fully sufficient cause exists, their existence and nonexistence are no longer both possible; rather, their existence becomes inevitable. For whatever Allah wills comes to pass, and whatever He does not will does not come to pass. When the Lord wills something, it cannot fail to exist; rather, it must exist by the will of the Lord Most High, which necessarily entails His power.”

They said:

“If that is so, then consider an event whose existence and nonexistence are both possible. If it comes into being without a newly occurring cause, while bearing the same relation to every moment in time, and while all events and moments bear the same relation to the Lord’s will and power, it follows that certain events are singled out to occur, and certain