Tahafut_al-Tahafut-transl-Engl-van-den-Bergh

kinds of movements, and such an entity is not a body. For instance, it
appears from the nature of the body of the heavens that it is a necessary
existent in its bodily substance, ‘ for otherwise there would have to be a
body prior to it, and it appears also from its nature that it is a possible
existent in its local movement; it is therefore necessary that its mover
should be a necessary existent in its substance, and that there should be
in it no potency whatsoever, either as regards movement or in any other
respect, and that neither movement nor rest could be ascribed to it nor
any other kind of change, and such an entity is absolutely without body
and without any potency in a body. But the eternal parts of the world are
only necessary existents in their substance, either universally like the four
elements, or individually like the heavenly bodies. ,
THE ELEVENTH DISCUSSION
TO SHOW THE INCAPACITY OF THOSE PHILOSOPHERS
WHO BELIEVE THAT THE FIRST KNOWS OTHER THINGS
BESIDE ITS OWN SELF AND THAT IT KNOWS THE GENERA
AND THE SPECIES IN A UNIVERSAL WAY, TO PROVE
THAT THIS IS SO
Ghazali says:
Since for the Muslims existence is confined to the
temporal and the eternal, and there is for them nothing
eternal except God and His attributes, and everything
besides Him is temporally created by Him through His will,
according to them the existent of necessity exists previously
in His knowledge, for the object willed must be known by the
willer. They deduced from this that the universe is known to
Him, for the universe was willed by Him and produced by
Him, and nothing comes into existence but what is produced
through His will, and nothing is everlasting but His essence
alone. And when once it was established that God wills and
knows what He wills, He must be necessarily living, ; and
every living being is conscious of its own self, and He is the
most capable of knowing Himself. Therefore the whole
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