the accidental properties of the body, or merely one of its parts. Such a view is a later innovation in Islam; none of the early generations nor any of the leading imams ever held it. Although it is attributed to most of the mutakallimūn (dialectical theologians), those who said this are not counted among the salaf of the ummah or its authoritative imams; rather, they belong to the class of newly invented scholastic theologians whom the predecessors reproved.

The imams of the ummah—as well as many philosophers who profess one of the revealed religions—affirm that the beings the prophets call “angels” are the very entities the Peripatetic philosophers label “intellects,” or “intellects and souls.” This is a serious error, as has been demonstrated at length elsewhere.

The “intellects” asserted by those philosophers have no real existence in the estimation of the messengers and their followers, nor do they stand up to clear rational scrutiny. In essence, what their discourse amounts to is that these so-called intellects are self-subsistent accidents. They have openly declared that the Necessary Existent Himself is knowledge, and that knowledge itself is identical with the Knower. Merely grasping the purport of this claim suffices to see its falsity, just as these philosophers—