al‑Ghazali on Cotton and Fire

““We admit the possibility of a contact between the two which will not result in burning, as also we admit the possibility of the transformation of cotton into ashes without coming into contact with fire. And they reject this possibility. There are three points from which the discussion of the question can be started. Firstly, the opponent may claim that fire alone is the agent of burning, and that being an agent by nature (not by choice), it cannot refrain from doing what it is its nature to do after it comes into contact with a subject which is receptive to it. This is what we deny. We say that it is God who—through the intermediacy of angels, or directly—is the agent of the creation of blackness in cotton; of the disintegration of its parts, and of their transformation into a smouldering heap or ashes. Fire, which is an inanimate thing, has no action.” — al‑Ghazali, *The Incoherence of the Philosophers*, Discussion 17, trans. Sabih Ahmad Kamali”