the good among them (1) is more abundant than among the people of innovation, while the evil [that] (2) exists among the people of innovation is more abundant than among Ahl al-Sunnah.

Suppose it is said:

“What you have mentioned shows that it is impossible for the world to be devoid of temporal occurrences and for them then to arise within it. We, however, maintain that it has always contained temporal occurrences. What is eternal is the basis (3) of the world, such as the celestial spheres, while the kind of temporal occurrences is like the genus of the spheres’ motions. As for individual temporal occurrences, they are, by agreement, temporally originated. Accordingly, what is beginningless necessarily entails a kind (4) of temporal occurrences, not any particular temporal occurrence. Thus, it does not (5) follow that all temporal occurrences are eternal or that their totality has a temporal beginning. Rather, what follows is the eternity of their kind and the temporal origination of their individual instances.

“This is as your leading scholars of Ahl al-Sunnah say: ‘The Lord has always been speaking whenever He wills and however He wills.’ They also say: ‘Acting is a necessary concomitant of life. The Lord has always been living and has therefore always been acting.’ This (6) is well known from the statements of your leading authorities, such as Ahmad ibn Hanbal, al-Bukhārī [author of the Sahīh] (7), Nuaym ibn Hammād al-Khuzāī, Uthmān ibn Saīd al-Dārimī, and others who preceded them, such as Ibn Abbās and Jafar al-Sādiq, as well as those who came after them.

“They transmit this from the leading scholars of Ahl al-Sunnah and say that whoever opposes this”