For a necessary being is one whose essence does not admit nonexistence, whereas a contingent being is one whose essence admits nonexistence. It is therefore impossible for one and the same thing both to admit and not to admit nonexistence. A beginningless being is one whose existence has no beginning, whereas a being brought into existence has a beginning. It is therefore impossible for one and the same thing to be both beginningless and brought into existence.

Were their intent in these words not already known, they could conceivably mean: “Within me is only the existence created by Him who brought me into being.” Attributing existence to Allah would then denote His ownership of it. Yet it is known that the speaker did not intend this. Moreover, this expression is not used in that sense: “Allah’s existence” means the existence of His own essence, not the existence of His creatures.

The same applies to the verse:

“The very existence of the cosmos is a witness to creation
That no being other than the Real has existence.”

The speaker means that the existence of the cosmos is the very existence of the Real. This is the doctrine of those who advocate the oneness of existence. If, however, he meant that the existence of every created being comes from the Real, Most High—that nothing has existence of itself, but only from its Lord; that things, considered in themselves, have no claim to anything but nonexistence, and acquire existence only from their Creator and Maker; and that they are perpetually dependent upon Him, never independent of Him for even a moment, whether in this world or the Hereafter—then he would have intended a sound meaning. This is the position held by people of reason and religion, both earlier and later generations.

But the statements of these advocates of the oneness of existence are contradictory. Hence they say: