does not come into being by itself. For this reason, the Most High says:

“Or were they created by nothing, or are they the creators?”

The words “Or were they created by nothing” have been interpreted as meaning: without a Lord who created them. Other interpretations are: without any material, or without any ultimate outcome or recompense. The first meaning is certainly intended, for anything created from some material or for some purpose must have a creator. Innate human nature recognizes more clearly that whatever is brought into being must have someone who brings it into being than that everything brought into being must have material from which it was created and a purpose for which it was created. Many rational people have disputed both of the latter claims, whereas no group has disputed the first by saying that this world came into being without anyone bringing it into being.

Rather, some groups have said that it is eternal in itself and necessary in itself, with no maker. But the claim that it originated and came into being by itself, without a maker, is not known to have been held by any recognized group; it is only attributed to unidentified people. Such a claim, and others like it, are made by people whose reason has become impaired, leading them into sophistry. Sophistry may affect particular individuals and concern certain matters. But an entire people being sophists in every matter is inconceivable. Thus, no people are known to have maintained that the world came into being without anyone bringing it into being.

When these people came to believe that everything possessing attributes, or anything in which there subsists an attribute or