He existed before the creation.

He existed before the creation.

• Explanation: The existence of Allah, ta^ala, is eternal. He was existing in eternity, prior to the creation. It was mentioned in the hadith of ^Imran Ibn al-Husayn which was related by al-Bukhariyy, al-Bayhaqiyy, and others: <<Allah existed and there was nothing other than Him.>> There is no one else eternal except Him. Allah, ta^ala, said:

which means: [He is The First.]

The Arab linguists said: "If both the subject of a nominal sentence and its predicate are definite nouns, then this entails ultimate exclusivity for that subject." In this verse, both the subject of the nominal sentence (Huwa, which means He) and the predicate (al-'Awwal, which means the First, i.e., the One Whose Existence has no beginning) are definite nouns. Hence this entails that only Allah's existence is without a beginning. He who believes that the existence of this world, whether by its kind or elements, has no beginning, has, by the consensus of the Muslim scholars, belied this ayah, departed from Islam, and joined the philosophers and ad-Dahriyyah. Ibn Taymiyah reported in five of his books that the kind of the world, like Allah, is eternal with no beginning to its existence. This is clear blasphemy.