think that reconciling these views would entail combining two contradictories: the agent must precede its act, yet it is impossible for it to become an agent after not having been one, so its act must coexist with it. The act would thus both coexist with the agent and not coexist with it, in that it came into existence after not existing, having originated and been preceded by nonexistence. On the latter assumption, it would be impossible for the agent’s act to have been preceded by nonexistence, whereas on the former assumption, its act must have been preceded by nonexistence. They found their minds unable to comprehend what necessitated this affirmation and what necessitated this negation. Since combining two contradictories is impossible, this plunged them into bewilderment and doubt.

One reason for this is that they did not understand the true nature of revelation and reason. They neither understood what the Quran and Sunnah indicated nor distinguished between seemingly similar matters in rational inquiry. Reason distinguishes between a speaker’s continually saying one thing after another, or an agent’s continually doing one thing after another, and the individual acts and utterances themselves. It therefore holds:

Each of the agent’s acts must be preceded by the agent and must be preceded by nonexistence. It is impossible for a particular act to coexist with its agent from eternity and forever. But the agent’s having always performed one act after another is an aspect of its perfection. Thus, if the agent is living, and it is said that life necessarily entails action and movement—as stated by leading scholars of hadith such as al-Bukhārī, al-Dārimī, and others—and that He has always spoken whenever He wills and whatever He wills, and the like, as stated by Ibn al-Mubārak, Ahmad, and others