A parallel example is what Abū Hāmid discussed in Tahāfut al-falāsifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers), when he refuted their doctrine of denying the attributes and showed that they had no evidence for denying them. His discussion was sound: he clarified the vague, ambiguous expressions on which they based their arguments, such as “composition.” They treated the affirmation of attributes as composition, saying, “Whenever we affirm a meaning beyond absolute existence, that constitutes composition.” They included five kinds under the term “composition.”

The first:
He has no reality other than absolute existence, lest He be composed of existence and essence.

The second:
He has no attribute, lest He be composed of an essence and attributes.

The third:
He has no combination of distinctive and shared characteristics, lest He be composed of that which He shares with others and that which distinguishes Him from them, as a species is composed of genus and differentia, or of a property and a common accident.

The fourth:
He is not above the world, lest He be composed of indivisible atoms. Likewise, He is not composed of matter and form. Thus, He is not composed in a perceptible manner, as a body is composed of indivisible atoms, nor in a conceptual manner, as it is composed of matter and form.

These last two are distinct kinds, bringing the total to five. This method is the method of