1.9. THINGNESS AND EXISTENCE
Thingness (shay’iyyah) is identical with existence, and non-existence has no entity, being sheer vacuity with no subsistence whatsoever. Hence subsistence [thubut) means existence, and ‘negation’ (nafy) means non-existence.
According to the Mu’tazilah, ‘subsistence’ (thubut) is more general than existence. They regard some non-existents - namely, ‘non-existent contingents’ (al-ma’dum al-mumkin) - as possessing a kind of subsistence. Hence, according to them, ‘negation’ has a narrower meaning than non-existence, not including anything except impossible non-existents (al-ma’dum al-mumtani’).
According to some of them, there is a middle stage between existents and non-existents which they call ‘state’ {hat), which is the attribute of a being that is neither existent nor non-existent, such as ‘knowledgeability’ (‘ilmiyyah), ‘fatherhood’ and ‘strength,’ which are abstracted qualities that have no independent existence. Hence they may not be said to exist, though existents possess these [relations and qualities]. Neither may they be said to be non-existent. As to subsistence (thubut) and negation (nafy), they are contradictories, there being no intermediary between them.
Such ruminations are mere fancies. The self-evident judgement, based on sound natural sense that non-existence is vacuity and has no entity, suffices to refute them.