بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

ان الحمد لله الواحد الأحد، المتوحد الصمد، الذي لم يلد ولم يولد، الخالق الأبد، الدائم الواجب

وصلى الله على سيدنا وحبيبنا وأسوتنا وقدوتنا وشفيعنا ومولانا محمد ﷺ أبي القاسم وجد الحسن والحسين المخصوص بقاب القوسين

أما بعد

In the attached screenshot, we can see the brother questioning those who rationally critique ʾIbn Taymīyyaħ’s position on perpetual creation. Perpetual creation is a belief that entails Allāh has been creating in pre-eternity. He has always been creating. Never stopping. This action has always been happening.

Now this brother poses the following three questions:

1. Is it perfection for Allāh to exist alone without anything to else?
2. If it is, then does our current existence imply an imperfection with respect to Allāh?
3. If it isn’t then what basis do you have for claiming that IT’s perpetual creation view is inconsistent with Allāh’s absolute sovereignty and perfection?

We will tackle this scenario from a rational and a textual angle. First I will disprove how perpetual creation isn’t supported by the above then discuss how the questions themselves are fallacious بإذن الله تعالى.

What is Perpetual Creation?

As I briefly summarised in the introduction, perpetual creation, to put it simply, is the belief that Allāh has been creating for eternity; that the act of creation happened eternally in the past.

One key thing to remember is that these particulars of creation are contingent but the act of creation is eternal.

To begin, can this belief be proved or disproved rationally? Without complicating this small article, we will all agree Allah is necessary, pre-eternal, willing etc. Proving these attributes via the intellect and textual proofs require their own sections but I shall omit them for brevity.

Let us suppose Allāh creates in pre eternity and has to create. First off this removes Allah’s Volition or ʾIrādaħ. You are effectively saying yes He can decide what to create but He cannot stop creating. This removes the ʾIrādaħ of Allāh, limiting it. It is within the mumkināt (possibilities) that Allāh doesn’t create. It is not wājib (necessary) for Him to create. If this were the case, this wujūb (necessity) would need to be proven (which one cannot do so), hence it seems to be that this is a condition, which itself is contingent (as conditions are accidental properties) and the Pre-Eternal cannot be attributed with contingency.

Let us suppose Allāh even chooses to do so. The only issue is that this implies the existence of an actual infinity. There is a simple argument against this. We are in the current moment, and we have an infinite amount of moments before us. We can analogise this to a series of infinite dominoes. What started making the dominoes fall? We can argue Allāh as He exists outside of space and time, however, now would never occur as there is an infinite amount of time that needs to pass first, to get to now, meaning now never actually happens. Therefore, time is finite, and there is not an infinite sequence of events in the past. There is a beginning,

Not only is this belief not supported rationally, but the Revelation doesn’t support it either.

We will begin with the Qurʾān and then move onto the Ḥadīṯ corpus بإذن الله تعالى:

﴿بَدِيعُ ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ ۖ وَإِذَا قَضَىٰٓ أَمْرًۭا فَإِنَّمَا يَقُولُ لَهُۥ كُن فَيَكُونُ ۝١١٧﴾

{Innovator of the Heavens and the Earth; when He decrees a matter then He only says for it, “Be” and it is.}

Sūraħ al-Baqaraħ ʾĀyaħ 117

﴿بَدِيعُ ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ ۖ أَنَّىٰ يَكُونُ لَهُۥ وَلَدٌۭ وَلَمْ تَكُن لَّهُۥ صَـٰحِبَةٌۭ ۖ وَخَلَقَ كُلَّ شَىْءٍۢ ۖ وَهُوَ بِكُلِّ شَىْءٍ عَلِيمٌۭ ۝١٠١﴾

{Innovator of the Heavens and the Earth; how can it be He has a child, whilst He has not a single companion and He created everything, and of all things He is All-Knowing.}

Sūraħ al-ʾAnʿām ʾĀyaħ 101

Here these two verses use the word Badīʿ, which has been translated to Innovator. It originates from the word badʿ which is defined as:

بدع: بدَع الشيءَ يَــبْدَعُــه بَدْعــاً وابْتَدَعَه: أَنشأَه وبدأَه.

Lisān al-ʿArab, ʾIbn Manẓūr

It is defined as to be creating and beginning a thing. This means it is creation of a thing from no precedent or model (which can be found in other dictionaries). This makes it clear that Allāh creates from nothing, meaning that ʾIbn Taymīyyaħ’s position is falsified anyway as he believes in creatia ex materia (creation from matter). Unfortunately, this isn’t the discussion of this small article, however it is linked to this belief of perpetual creation.

Nonetheless, this verse is proof that there was nothing before the creation of the heavens and the earth, meaning perpetual creation cannot be a reality.

In the Ḥadīṯ corpus we find the following Ḥadīṯ:

حَدَّثَنَا عَبْدَانُ، عَنْ أَبِي حَمْزَةَ، عَنِ الأَعْمَشِ، عَنْ جَامِعِ بْنِ شَدَّادٍ، عَنْ صَفْوَانَ بْنِ مُحْرِزٍ، عَنْ عِمْرَانَ بْنِ حُصَيْنٍ، قَالَ إِنِّي عِنْدَ النَّبِيِّ صلى الله عليه وسلم إِذْ جَاءَهُ قَوْمٌ مِنْ بَنِي تَمِيمٍ فَقَالَ ‏”‏ اقْبَلُوا الْبُشْرَى يَا بَنِي تَمِيمٍ ‏”‏‏.‏ قَالُوا بَشَّرْتَنَا فَأَعْطِنَا‏.‏ فَدَخَلَ نَاسٌ مِنْ أَهْلِ الْيَمَنِ فَقَالَ ‏”‏ اقْبَلُوا الْبُشْرَى يَا أَهْلَ الْيَمَنِ إِذْ لَمْ يَقْبَلْهَا بَنُو تَمِيمٍ ‏”‏‏.‏ قَالُوا قَبِلْنَا‏.‏ جِئْنَاكَ لِنَتَفَقَّهَ فِي الدِّينِ وَلِنَسْأَلَكَ عَنْ أَوَّلِ هَذَا الأَمْرِ مَا كَانَ‏.‏ قَالَ ‏”‏ كَانَ اللَّهُ وَلَمْ يَكُنْ شَىْءٌ قَبْلَهُ، وَكَانَ عَرْشُهُ عَلَى الْمَاءِ، ثُمَّ خَلَقَ السَّمَوَاتِ وَالأَرْضَ، وَكَتَبَ فِي الذِّكْرِ كُلَّ شَىْءٍ ‏”‏‏.‏ ثُمَّ أَتَانِي رَجُلٌ فَقَالَ يَا عِمْرَانُ أَدْرِكْ نَاقَتَكَ فَقَدْ ذَهَبَتْ فَانْطَلَقْتُ أَطْلُبُهَا، فَإِذَا السَّرَابُ يَنْقَطِعُ دُونَهَا، وَايْمُ اللَّهِ لَوَدِدْتُ أَنَّهَا قَدْ ذَهَبَتْ وَلَمْ أَقُمْ‏.‏

Ṣaḥīḥ al-Buḵārīyy

The highlighted section is the key focus for this article. It says “Allāh was whilst nothing was before Him.” This is explicit in its wording, meaning there was no creation before creation itself. One may interject and say: “Right after it, the Ḥadīṯ mentions “And His Throne was upon water.” This is proof there was creation before creation.” This isn’t an appropriate response as there is an explicit mention of nothing being before. The next section just shows us that this happened in time, which Allāh is free from (refer to my other article on this here). So the above we can see clearly perpetual creation is a belief not supported by the rational faculties, nor is it supported by Revelation.