 Avicenna (980–1037), whose Arabic name is Ibn Sina, sets out cosmological arguments in a number of works, but a detailed version is found in his Remarks and Admonitions (Kitab al-Isharat wa l-Tanbihat) (Avicenna [ISR]; Mayer 2001). He begins with a claim about contingently existing things: since it is possible for a contingent thing either to exist or not to exist, whether it exists or not hangs in the balance. But then, if a contingent thing does exist, there must be something external to it, a cause, that accounts for its existing rather than not. This establishes a principle crucial to the argument: “the existence of every contingent is from other than it.”