Abdal Hakim Murad - The Cambridge Companion to Islamic Theology

214 Ayman Shihadeh
necessary existent). 58 In other words, the argument presupposes these
different considerations about the world: one should prove that the
world is not necessarily existent, but contingent, and that a contingent
requires a necessary existent to exist, before concluding that God,
therefore, exists. A good proof indeed, Razı would add, but not an
ontological one. Nevertheless, even if such criticisms are accepted,
Avicenna should nonetheless be credited with the first attempt ever to
advance such a proof. 59
Further reading
Primary texts in translation
al-Bayd awı, ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Umar, T awali‘ al-Anwar, tr. Edwin E. Calverley and
_ _
James W. Pollock, in Nature, Man and God in Medieval Islam, 2 vols.
(Leiden, 2002), esp. vol. ii, pp. 727–48.
al-Ghazalı, Abu H amid, The Jerusalem Epistle [Al-Qudsiyya], tr. A. Tibawi, in
_
Islamic Quarterly 9 (1965), pp. 62–122, esp. pp. 96–9.
Ibn Rushd, Abu l-Walıd, Faith and Reason: Averroes’ Exposition of Religious
Arguments [Al-Kashf ‘an manahij al-adilla fı ‘aqa’id al-milla], tr. I. Najjar
(Oxford, 2001), esp. pp. 16–38.
al-Jah iz , ‘Amr ibn Bah r, Chance or Creation [al-Dala’il wa-l-i‘tibar], tr. M. A. S.
_ _ _
Abdel Haleem (Reading, 1995).
al-Juwaynı, ‘Abd al-Malik, A Guide to Conclusive Proofs for the Principles of
Belief [Al-Irshad], tr. Paul E. Walker (Reading, 2000), esp. pp. 11–18.
al-Qasim ibn Ibrahım, Kitab al-dalıl al-kabır, tr. Binyamin Abrahamov, in
Al-K asim b. Ibrahım on the Proof of God’s Existence (Leiden, 1990).
_
Secondary texts
Craig, William, The Kalam Cosmological Argument (New York, 1979).
Davidson, Herbert, Proofs for Eternity, Creation and the Existence of God in
Medieval Islamic and Jewish Philosophy (New York and Oxford, 1987).
Goodman, Lenn, ‘‘Ghazâlî’s argument from creation’’, International Journal of
Middle East Studies 2 (1971), pp. 67–85, 168–88.
Hallaq, Wael B., ‘‘Ibn Taymiyya on the existence of God’’, Acta Orientalia 52
(1991), pp. 49–69.
Marmura, Michael E., ‘‘Avicenna’s proof from contingency for God’s
existence in the Metaphysics of the Shifa’’’, Mediaeval Studies 42
(1980), pp. 337–52.
Mayer, Toby, ‘‘Ibn Sına’s ‘Burhan al-S _
iddıqın’,’’ Journal of Islamic Studies 12
(2001), pp. 18–39.
Morewedge, Parviz, ‘‘A third version of the ontological argument in the Ibn
Sınian metaphysics’’, in Parviz Morewedge (ed.), Islamic Philosophical
Theology (New York, 1979), pp. 188–222.
Yaran, Cafer S., Islamic Thought on the Existence of God (Washington, 2003).
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