in which we contradict reason and revelation. Thus, the assertion that a speaker speaks (1) with speech that does not depend upon his will and power, or that is separate from him and does not subsist in him, is contrary to reason and revelation. By contrast, his speaking with speech that depends upon his will and power and subsists in him contradicts neither reason nor revelation. Yet [we] (2) may not have affirmed it together with its necessary implications, thereby becoming inconsistent. If we are inconsistent, we must retract the position in which we erred so that it accords with the position in which we were correct; we must not abandon what is correct merely to carry the error through consistently (3). We therefore retract those [inconsistencies] (4) and affirm the position of the People of Hadith.

If you say:

“To affirm one temporal event after another (5), without a beginning (6), is the doctrine of the eternalist philosophers.”

(* We reply:

Rather, your assertion that the Lord Most High had been inactive from eternity, unable to speak or act, and that it then became possible for Him to speak and act (7), without the arising of any cause entailing this, is contrary to unequivocal reason and to the position held by Muslims. Muslims know that Allah has always possessed power, and affirming power while holding that what is subject to that power is impossible and cannot occur is to combine two contradictories. Thus, in what is held by