either every body is temporally originated (1), or it is [not] so; [and each position has been maintained] by a group among the people of the qiblah and by others (2).

All these groups affirm the temporal origination of the celestial spheres and hold that Allah brought them into being after their nonexistence. None of them holds the spheres to be eternal, for that is the doctrine of the eternalists—whether they [also affirm an intelligible world, such as the First Cause, as the metaphysicians among them do, or do not affirm this, as their natural philosophers do; whether they say that the First Cause is a final cause, meaning that the celestial sphere moves so as to resemble it, as Aristotle and his followers maintain, or say that it is an originating cause of the world, as Avicenna and those like him maintain; whether the five eternal principles are posited, as the Harranians (3) and others like them maintain, or the celestial spheres are said to have no Maker] (4)—whether their [established] existence is deemed necessary (5), they are held to have come into being though not by themselves, or matter is held to exist necessarily while form comes into being without an originator, as is reported of the pure eternalists among them.

Nevertheless, many people say (6) that these positions are of the same kind as the assertions (7) of the Sophists, which are not known to have been held by any particular group; rather, they are notions that occur to some people under certain circumstances (8).