Likewise, the approach introduced into this method by Ibn Sīnā and his followers—arguing from the contingent to the necessary—is even more unsound, as has been explained at length elsewhere. Its real implication is that everything that exists is contingent and that nothing exists independently, even though they have made this a means of establishing a being necessary in itself, just as the others make their method a means of establishing an eternal being. Both arguments contradict the existence of the eternal and the necessary. Neither establishes an eternal being or one necessary in itself, even though the existence of an eternal being necessary in itself is known with self-evident certainty.

This is why the most accomplished among them came to hold that the necessary, eternal being is the world itself, saying, “It is Allah.” They denied that the world has a Lord distinct from it, since the existence of an eternal being necessary in itself must be acknowledged on any account. Pharaoh and others like him who denied the Maker did not deny this observable existence.

The substance of those people’s position thus entails that no eternal or necessary being exists. Yet they do not recognize that this follows from their position; rather, they think they have established proof of an eternal being necessary in itself. But they describe Him in terms that make His existence impossible, saying, “He is neither within the world nor outside it; He is neither an attribute nor possessed of attributes; nor can He be pointed to,” along with other negative attributes that entail His nonexistence. Such descriptions repel reason and people’s innate dispositions, and are recognized as descriptions of what does not and cannot exist, not of what exists. Thus their argument, in reality,