who exists through Himself. These attributes cannot be separated from Him or exist without Him, nor does He exist without them. Thus, there are not two things that were once separate and were then joined together to form a composite.

The word murakkab (“composite”) is originally a passive participle: one says rakkabtuhu (“I assembled it”), so it is “assembled,” just as one says, “I separated it,” so it is “separated”; “I gathered it,” so it is “gathered”; “I combined it,” so it is “combined”; and “I moved it,” so it is “moved.”

Allah Most High says:
“In whatever form He willed, He assembled you.”
(al-Infitār, 8)

One also says, “I fitted the door into place.”

This is what “composite” means in ordinary language. In the terminology of the speculative theologians and philosophers, however, it has come to bear several meanings other than something whose parts were separate and then brought together. Thus, one of them may say, “A body is either simple or composite,” meaning by “simple” something whose parts resemble one another, such as water or air, and by “composite” something whose parts differ, such as a human being.

They may also say that every body is composed of its parts, because one part is distinct from another, even though they believe that it has never been separated and has always been as it is. They dispute whether a body is composed of atoms, of matter and form, or of neither, although they agree that there are bodies that have not