This is because they took much of their discourse from that of the Mutazilites, and the Mutazilites fall short in this regard: they did not give the oneness (1) of lordship its due, much less the oneness of divinity.

Even so, the leading Mutazilites and their shaykhs, as well as the leading Asharis, the Karrāmiyya, and others like them, are better at establishing the oneness of lordship than the philosophizing Asharis, such as al-Rāzī, al-Āmidī, and their like. The latter mixed it with the philosophers’ conception of tawhīd, as found in Ibn Sīnā (2) and others like him. This is the discourse furthest removed from a sound understanding of tawhīd, although it is better than the discourse of their ancient predecessors, Aristotle and his associates.

Their utmost achievement was to affirm (3) the Necessary Existent. This is true, and neither a negationist nor a polytheist disputes (4) it, (5) for people agree in affirming the existence of a necessary being—with the possible exception of a report about a certain person who said, “This world came into being (6) by itself.” Many people say: “[Indeed,] this (7) was never maintained by any known sect; it is merely posited hypothetically, just as sophistical objections (8) are posited so that they may be investigated, (9) and this is among the notions that occur (10) in the hearts of