Abd Allāh ibn Mandah (1), Abū Ismā'īl al-Ansārī, Abū Nasr al-Sijzī (2), and Abū Bakr Muhammad ibn Ishāq ibn Khuzayma and his followers (3).

The sum [of the discussion] concerning this—N, M: “The sum of that”—is whether that which depends upon the Creator’s will and power, such as voluntary acts, subsists in Him, Most High—the point on which these two positions turn.

Those who affirm this and hold that divine acts have causes said:

We say to those among the Mu'tazila, the Shī'a, and others who deny this: You maintain that [the Lord] (4) remained inactive in pre-eternity, neither speaking nor doing anything, and then initiated speech and action without any newly occurring cause whatsoever. This necessarily entails preferring one of two possible alternatives over the other without any determining factor. This gave the philosophers leverage against you, although the leading authorities of the religious communities and the leading philosophers opposed them on this point. You nevertheless imagined that you had thereby established proof that the universe was temporally originated, because you supposed that anything never devoid of temporal events must itself be temporally originated, since an infinite succession of temporal events is impossible.

For this principle, you have no support in the Book, the Sunnah, or any report from the Companions and the Followers. Rather, the Book, the Sunnah, and the reports from the Companions [and the Prophet’s close relatives] and their followers (5)