by saying that when things necessary in themselves are combined, they become contingent, whereas when things contingent in themselves are combined, they become necessary. When arguing against the attributes necessarily belonging to Allah, they treat a composite’s dependence on its parts as grounds for declaring it impossible, and use this to rule out Allah’s being above, corporeality, and the affirmation of His attributes. Yet they do not raise against themselves the objection they raised when establishing a necessary existent. Raising it here would be more appropriate, since it accords with all the other rational proofs while affirming what the Messengers brought, including the affirmation of Allah’s attributes of perfection—indeed, of His very reality, without which He could not exist. They could therefore have said: “Why could the necessary aggregate, necessary composite, or necessary whole not be necessary by virtue of the necessity of each of its parts, which are necessary in themselves and cannot cease to exist?”

This would have been better than saying: “Why could an aggregate, each of whose parts is contingent in itself, not be necessary in itself or necessary by virtue of its parts?”

Yet al-Āmidī, despite being among the ablest of his kind to discuss these matters and the most knowledgeable about dialectical theology and philosophy, became confused and was unable to answer