with events and necessarily entails them, it is impossible for Him to will it without willing its inseparable concomitants. Allah is the Lord and Creator of all things; there is no lord besides Him. It is therefore impossible that some of this should occur by His will and some by the will of another. Rather, all of it occurs by His will.
Accordingly, the beginningless, eternal will (1) either necessarily entails that its object coexist with it, or it does not. If the former, then the object willed and its necessary concomitants must be eternal and beginningless. Events are necessary concomitants of every created object of will; they must therefore be willed by Him and must be eternal and beginningless (2). For the hypothesis is that the object willed coexists with the will. It would follow that all successive events are eternal and beginningless—and this is intrinsically impossible.
[An Objection Resembling Ibn Malka’s Position and the Response to It]
If it is said:
He willed that which is eternal by an eternal will, while He willed the events successively supervening upon it (3) by successive acts of will—as a group of philosophers may maintain—and this resembles the position of the author of al-Mu'tabar (4).
(1) A and B read: “the eternal, beginningless [will].”
(2) A and B read: “His object of will, even if it recurs, must therefore be eternal and beginningless” (in A, “eternal and beginningless” are feminine). The correct reading is the one we have adopted, which is found in N and M. The intended construction is: “These events must be willed and, at the same time, must be eternal and beginningless.”
(3) N and M read the equivalent of “upon it,” but with a feminine pronoun.
(4) This is Abū al-Barakāt Hibat Allāh ibn Malkā, author of *al-Mu'tabar fī al-Hikma*. Historians differ over his name: some call him Hibat Allāh ibn Alī, others Ibn Malkā, and still others Ibn Malkān. They likewise differ over the year of his death: some place it in 547 AH, while others give 560 or 570 AH. A physician and philosopher, he was Jewish and embraced Islam. He was known as Awhad al-Zamān (“the Peerless One of the Age”) and Faylasūf al-Irāqayn (“the Philosopher of the Two Iraqs”). His *al-Mu'tabar* was printed in Hyderabad in 1357 AH. For his biography and a discussion of his book, see: the end of volume 3 of his *al-Mu'tabar*, p. [0–9] 30–252; Ibn Abī Usaybi'a, *Tabaqāt al-Atibbā'* (Beirut ed.), 2:296–300; Ibn al-Qiftī, *Akhbār al-Hukamā'*, p. [0–9] 43–346; Zahīr al-Dīn al-Bayhaqī, *Tārīkh Hukamā' al-Islām*, pp. 152–154; al-Safadī, *Nukat al-Himyān*, p. 304; *Wafayāt al-A'yān*, 5:124–125; and *al-A'lām*, 9:63.