station, no entity of that number would appear. Thus its entity and its name never come together. One says: two, three, four, five, and so on without end.
Whenever you subtract one from a particular number, the name of that number disappears, and its reality disappears. By its essence, the one preserves the existence of the entities of numbers; by its name, it makes them nonexistent. Likewise, if you say “the Beginningless,” the temporally originated passes away; if you say “God,” the world passes away. If you empty the world of God’s preservation, the world has no existence and passes away. When God’s preservation pervades the world, the world remains existent. Through His manifestation and self-disclosure, the world thus abides.
Our companions follow this way, which is the way of prophethood. The Ashʿarite theologians also follow it: they are those who hold that accidents become nonexistent of themselves. Through this, the world’s need for God in its abiding at every breath is established, and God never ceases creating. Other speculative thinkers do not realize this station.
A group of speculative thinkers among the scholars of formal learning informed me that a group of philosophers had discovered this. I also found it to be the doctrine of Ibn al-Sid al-Baṭalyawsī in a book he composed on this subject. God “speaks the truth, and He guides the way” [al-Ahzab 33:4].
Chapter 26
Notlar
Translator’s note TN754-1: The numerical analogy distinguishes the presence of units within a number from the number’s own name: a collection named “three” is sustained by units, but calling it simply “one” no longer names that collection as three. The author uses this distinction to explain continual dependence upon divine preservation.
