—the Maker—majestic is His glory—namely, all that He has created, are inseparably linked to His existence, and there is nothing among them—God forbid—that anyone may claim is a cause that produces Him.

In sum, every proof entails what it proves, and what is proved is inseparable from its proof. All rational people agree on this. They likewise agree that a proof is not confined to being an effect of that which it establishes; the category of proofs is broader than that. Both matters are obvious and universally acknowledged. How, then, can it be asserted that whenever one thing is inseparable from another, the thing from which the inseparable follows must be the efficient cause that brings it about? Every object of proof is concomitant with its proof, yet in most proofs this causal production is absent.

If it is said, “By ‘necessary concomitant’ we mean only those attributes that necessarily belong to an entity, and the quiddity of the described entity itself necessitates those attributes,” we reply that this is mistaken for several reasons.

First, this is not what they actually intended, as we have quoted their words. Rather, they declared that propositions which are not axiomatic are the ones that require a middle term—here regarded as an effect of the quiddity—while axiomatic propositions are those in which the predicate is predicated of the subject, both mentally and externally, by an immediate predication with no middle term. Thus they made the mental middle term identical with the external one, and that external middle term is precisely what they now describe as an effect of the quiddity. By this they have, moreover, distinguished between an evident necessary concomitant and one that is not evident.

Second, even if we grant that they are speaking of attributes necessarily bound to a quiddity, every proof is still inseparable from what it proves. Its being so is an attribute essentially attached to it; according to their scheme, this necessary attribute is sometimes with a middle term and sometimes without. The created signs of Allah—the entire universe—are inseparably linked to the existence of the Lord Most High, and His existence is necessary for them. Their being so linked is an essential attribute that can never be removed from them, for they are, by their very nature, dependent on the Creator, and that dependence never leaves them. Their origination is proof of the Maker, yet they by no means brought Him into being. Likewise, an effect possesses attributes necessarily bound to it, and both it and its attributes point unavoidably to the existence of the cause.