common to them can be ruled out only if these attributes are attributes of substance itself. This is an impossible circular argument.

He said: “Know that the approaches used by the adherents of the truth to establish homogeneity, however differently they are expressed, all come down to what has been mentioned. The objection raised against it therefore remains unavoidable, with no escape except to say: ‘By the homogeneity of substances, we mean nothing other than their sharing the attributes we have mentioned.’ In that case, the dispute ultimately concerns terminology, not the meaning itself.”

[Ibn Taymiyyah’s comment]

I say:

This is his conclusion, despite his familiarity with the approaches of those who maintain homogeneity and his desire to support them if he could. He states that all the approaches they have advanced come down to what he has mentioned. Yet it is self-evident that this does not establish their likeness; it merely establishes that they share some feature. There is no more reason to regard what they share as their essence and what distinguishes them as attributes than to take the reverse view.

This is only a concession for the sake of argument. Otherwise, we know necessarily and through sense perception that different bodies differ, just as we know that different accidents differ. His statement that the difference lies in the accidents, not in that which bears them, contradicts sense perception. For fire itself differs from water; it is not merely the heat of fire that differs from the coldness of water; rather,