What does Allah’s being Pre-Eternal mean?

Dear Brother / Sister,

7.1.1-Allah is pre-eternal

First of all, Allah is pre-eternal; His existence has no beginning. Something that has no firstness (beginning) is pre-eternal (qadim); something that is created in time is hadith (contingent). Allah is qadim; things that are created in time cannot be deities.  Everything other than Allah is hadith; that is to say, they were created afterwards. They were created by the power of Allah. There is no doubt that creatures cannot have the attribute pre-eternal, which is peculiar to the Creator. There was nothing else with His pre-eternal existence. The realms were created later. In that case, the Creator cannot have been created. Asking who created Allah originates from not knowing Allah because whatever is thought as a creaturecannot be a deity.¹

God Almighty is pre-eternal, post-eternal, the first and the last. There is nothing or nobody similar to, equal to and like him; He has no partners. His attributes come from His essence.

Those who do not accept or cannot understand the pre-eternality of Allah have to accept as many deities as atoms by attributing pre-eternality to matter.

1.Bilmen, Ö. N. Büyük İslam İlmihali. Istanbul, 2001, p.14.

Questions on Islam