And Abraham, the intimate friend,(1) did not use this as proof that the stars had a temporal beginning, nor as proof of the Maker’s existence. Rather, he used their setting as proof that worshiping them was false. His people were polytheists who worshiped the stars and invoked them besides Allah; they did not claim that the stars had created the heavens and the earth, for no rational person would say such a thing. Hence, he said:

“O my people, I am indeed free of whatever you associate with Allah.”

[Surah al-Anām: 78]

And he said:

“Have you considered what you have been worshiping—you and your forefathers of old? They are indeed enemies to me, except the Lord of all worlds.”

[Surah al-Shuarā: 75–77]

[The discussion of](2) this has been treated at length elsewhere.(3)

The point here is that [these people](4) take expressions by which Muslims convey one meaning and use them to convey another meaning that contradicts the religion of the Muslims. They do so to give the impression that they agree with Muslims in what they say, [and that they](5) affirm: “The world is temporally originated, and everything other than Allah is, in our view, something that sets and is temporally originated”—meaning that it is an effect caused by Him, even though it is eternal and beginningless alongside Him, necessarily existent through Him, and has always existed and will always exist.

The great majority of rational people maintain that an effect can only be temporally originated, especially an effect produced by an agent acting by choice. If, then, some of these people say that He acts without any temporally arising cause and selects one of two things within His power over the other without any determining factor, then he is not—