This chapter surveys the Greek background in Plato’s Timaeus, Aristotle’s Physics and De Caelo, and the dispute between late Greek thinkers, especially Proclus and Philoponus. Against this background, al-Kindī’s arguments that only God can be eternal and that creation must be finite in time as well as space are explored. It is suggested that al-Kindī’s interest in this topic can be explained in terms of the contemporary ’Abbāsid dogma that the Koran is not eternal, but created.
Keywords: eternity, creation, infinity, Mutazilites, Philoponus, time, Proclus, Timaeus, De Caelo, ’Abbāsids