The falsity of their position and its incompatibility with clear reason—which accords with authentic transmitted revelation—have been discussed elsewhere, beyond these remarks. All these groups flee from something only to fall into its like and into something worse, besides the distortion and denial of divine attributes that their positions entail. Had they examined the matter closely, they would have treated like things alike and distinguished between unlike things, as reason requires. They would have been among those given knowledge, who see that what has been revealed to the Messenger is the truth from his Lord and guides to the path of the Almighty, the Praiseworthy. Instead, they embrace obscurities disguised as rational truths: they practice sophistry in rational matters and treat revelation in the manner of the Qarmatians.

For it is self-evident to reason that there must be a beginningless existent, independent of everything else. We observe things coming into being, such as animals, minerals, and plants. Whatever comes into being is contingent: its existence is neither necessary nor impossible. It is necessarily known that whatever comes into being must have an originator, and whatever is contingent must have one who brings it into existence. As Allah Most High says:

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

Since they were neither created without a creator nor the creators of themselves, it necessarily follows that they have a Creator who created them.

Since it is necessarily known that among existing things there is that which is beginningless and necessarily existent in itself, and that which comes into being and is contingent, admitting both existence and nonexistence, it is known that the former exists, and the latter