that this is established either by the method of Ibn Sīnā and those like him, which has already been refuted, or by the method of the Muʿtazilah, which Ibn Rushd adopted while acknowledging the unsoundness of Ibn Sīnā’s method.

If “composition” means what has already been explained, then it is clear that, concerning an essence characterized by inseparable attributes, or within which inseparable qualities subsist, one cannot say that the essence’s possession of attributes is a known fact requiring an agent, such that the parts could be called the cause of the composition, or the composition could be called its own cause.

Rather, this meaning which you have called “composition” is inseparable from that which is necessarily existent in itself. That which is necessarily existent cannot but possess its inseparable attributes and have its inseparable qualities subsisting within it. This has no efficient cause, as explained above.

As for his statement, “Composition is a condition for the existence of the parts,” the response is this: There is no doubt that the essence cannot exist without its inseparable attributes, nor can its attributes exist without it. Thus, the conjunction of the essence with its attributes, and the conjunction of mutually inseparable things, is a condition for the existence of each of them; they, in turn, are a condition for the existence of that conjunction. None of this is the effect of an agent or dependent upon something external to it ن. The dependence of each upon the other is a case of concurrent, simultaneous circular dependence, not circular dependence involving precedence and priority. The former is possible; the latter is impossible. Mutually inseparable things exist only together, and none acts as the agent producing another. Rather, unless they are necessarily existent in themselves, they all require an agent.