But beyond this, is there a self-subsisting, continuously flowing substance that is dahr (time)? This is a matter over which people have disagreed. A group of philosophizers among Plato’s followers affirmed its existence, just as they affirmed the external existence of abstract universals, known as Platonic Forms and absolute Forms. They also affirmed prime matter, which is matter abstracted from forms, and the void as a self-subsisting substance.

The great majority of rational thinkers, philosophers and others, however, know that none of these has any reality outside the mind. These are merely things that the mind conceives and postulates. Those who fall into error suppose that what exists in their minds exists in precisely the same way outside their minds. They have made the same mistake concerning absolute existence, despite knowing that the absolute, subject to the condition of absoluteness, exists only in the mind. Outside the mind, there are only particular things: individual entities and the attributes that inhere in them.

Thus, there is no place except a body or something inhering in it, and no time except the measure of motion. There is no matter abstracted from forms; indeed, even matter conjoined with forms is nothing other than the body in which accidents inhere. Nor is there any form except an accident inhering in a body, or a body in which an accident inheres.

These matters and others like them are discussed at length elsewhere. The purpose here is merely to draw brief attention to what bears on this subject. And Allah knows best.