philosophy, kalām, Hadith, and other groups. It concerns temporal origination (1) and eternity as they pertain to Allah’s actions and speech. This includes discussion of the temporal origination of the world and of Allah’s speech and actions. Discussion of these two foundational questions is among the matters that leave minds perplexed. (2)

The philosophers who held that the world is eternal were exceedingly far from the truth brought by the messengers—a truth consistent with plain reason and sound revelation. Yet they confronted the theologians who agreed with them in denying that actions and attributes (3) subsist in His Essence—or, alternatively, in denying that actions subsist in His Essence—with the necessary implications of the theologians’ own position. This exposed such contradictions among the theologians that these heretics were emboldened to lord it over them, while the learned believers (4) among the Salaf, the leading authorities, and their followers condemned them for it.

Their discourse was precisely the kind for which the Salaf condemned them, because it contained error and misguidance through which they opposed the truth in (5) the questions they addressed and the proofs they advanced. They therefore remained wavering and contradictory: they neither affirmed what the messengers brought as it truly is, nor vanquished the enemies of the faith with plain, rational truth.

The reason for this was that they did not establish the truth of what the messengers reported; they neither knew it nor believed in it. Nor did they properly establish what reason necessarily entails. Their knowledge of revealed and rational matters was therefore deficient, [although] (6) they possessed a considerable share of both. Thus, they concurred in some of what—