 Al-Ghazâlî lays out four conditions that any explanation of physical processes that is acceptable to him must fulfill: (1) the connection between a cause and its effect is not necessary, (2) the effect can come to exist without this particular cause (“they are not incapable of separation”), (3) God creates two events concomitant, side by side, and (4) God’s creation follows a prior decision (taqdîr). On first sight, it seems that only an occasionalist explanation of physical processes would fulfill these four conditions, and this is how this statement has mostly been understood. Rudolph (in Perler/Rudolph 2000, 75–77), however, pointed out that not only occasionalism but other types of explanations also fulfill these four criteria. Most misleading is the third requirement that God would need to create events “side by side.” These words seem to point exclusively to an occasionalist understanding of creation. One should keep in mind, however, that this formula leaves open, how God creates events. Even an Avicennan philosopher holds that God creates the cause concomitant to its effect, and does so by means of secondary causality. While the 17th discussion of al-Ghazâlî’s Incoherence points towards occasionalism as a possible solution, it also points to others. Al-Ghazâlî chooses a certain linguistic association to occasionalism, which has led many interpreters of this discussion to believe that here, he argues exclusively in favor of it.