others; Ibn Aqīl calls these “states.” The arising of new relations and relative attributions is accepted by everyone, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, since it entails neither change nor transformation.

(The second reply) is that, even if this entails a transition from one state to another and from one condition to another, it is comparable to His coming, His arrival, His descent, His speaking to Moses, His coming on the Day of Resurrection in a form, and similar matters established by the scriptural texts. These are affirmed by most adherents of the Sunnah and hadith, as well as many speculative theologians, and are a necessary implication of the positions of all the sects. We have discussed people’s disagreement over this in our treatise on the distinction between attributes and created things, and on attributes of action.

As for these Jahmīs who hold that Allah and creation are identical, they say:

“He is now as He was then: nothing other than Him exists with Him, just as He existed in eternity past with nothing alongside Him.”

They say: “Since created beings are neither other than Him nor distinct from Him, there is only Him. Thus, nothing else exists with Him, either in eternity past or ever thereafter. Rather, He is identical with all existing things and is Himself all created beings.” They make the things created and fashioned identical with the Creator, the Originator, the Fashioner.

They incessantly repeat this phrase in their ravings:

“And He is now as He was then.”

They esteem it more highly than “Say, ‘He is Allah, the One,’” and the Verse of the Throne, because it indicates the identity of Allah and creation that constitutes their heresy. They believe that it is authentically transmitted from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, that it is among his words, and that it expresses one of the secrets of his knowledge. Yet we have shown that it is a lie fabricated against the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace: he never said it, no scholar transmitted it, and it is not found in any of the hadith collections;