among the Asharis, the Karrāmiyya, [and others] (1), as well as those who agreed with them from among the followers of the imams—the adherents of Mālik, al-Shāfiī, Ahmad, and others—this would invalidate the argument by which these philosophers maintain the beginninglessness of the world.

For the foundation of their argument is that events can occur only through an originated cause. Thus, if they were to allow their occurrence (2) through an agent possessed of power and choice without an originated cause, or allow them to occur through a beginningless, pre-eternal will, the mainstay of their argument would collapse. But they do not allow (3) this.

The foundation of this proof is that, if anything in the world were beginningless, it would necessarily have proceeded from a complete determinant—whether this were called a complete cause or something that necessitates by its very essence, or whether it were said: “He is an agent possessed of power and choice, whose choice is pre-eternal and coexists with its object in pre-eternity” (4). Yet it is impossible (5) for such a thing to exist in pre-eternity. It is likewise impossible that there should exist in pre-eternity an agent possessed of power and choice whose object coexists with Him—whether this is called a complete cause or not, and whether He is called one who necessitates by His very essence [or not] (6). Indeed, it is impossible for any of the [particular] (7) intelligible effects to coexist temporally with its pre-eternal agent. The impossibility of this is known by plain reason to the overwhelming majority of rational people, past and present. It is therefore impossible that there should exist in pre-eternity a complete cause or something that necessitates by its very essence, whether (8) it is called an agent possessed of power and choice or not.