the first stretch in the course of its motion is a condition for its traversing the second stretch in the course of that motion; and the complete cause for traversing the second arose only after the first had been traversed. This is the furthest their position goes, though they express it in various formulations. Sometimes (1) they say: “The emanation proceeding from the First Cause and First Principle, or the Necessary Existent—who is Allah, Exalted is He—is perpetual; however, its effect is delayed until the requisite preparedness and receptive substrates exist.” According to (2) many of them—or most of them—the cause of that preparedness and those receptive substrates is the motion of the celestial sphere. Thus, for these thinkers, the motion of the celestial sphere is the sole cause of the changes in the world—as maintained by Ibn Sīnā and others like him. This is the position commonly held by the followers of Aristotle.

Other thinkers of a higher rank than these—such as Abū al-Barakāt and others—say instead: “The changes are caused by the newly arising volitions, and even cognitions, that subsist in the Lord’s essence,” as he has explained at length in his book al-Muʿtabar.

Those thinkers—such as Ibn Sīnā and others like him—say: “He is, in and of Himself, an eternal complete cause of the world, including all the newly arising events within it. The first event served as a condition that prepared the receptive substrate (3) for the second event.” This position is utterly corrupt and also utterly contradicts their own principles. The cause of the second event must exist in its entirety when that event occurs. Yet when the second event occurred (4), nothing new accrued to the First Agent through which He could act, except the nonexistence of the first event. The mere nonexistence of the first event did not, in their view, provide the Agent with any power, will, or—