each of them has a reality—its essence, its very self, and its essential nature. Even if the two existing things are plainly different, like blackness and whiteness, they must share what is denoted by existence, reality, and the like. Indeed, they share even more specific characteristics, such as each being a colour, an accident, and something that subsists in another, yet they remain different.

If every two existing things have something that unites them and something that distinguishes them, then it is known that nothing is like Allah Most High—in His essence, His attributes, or His acts. Nothing peculiar to created beings may therefore be attributed to Him, nor may He be likened to them. Nor may any existing thing be held to possess the like of any of His attributes, or to resemble Him in anything peculiar to Him. Exalted is He, far above what the wrongdoers say.

If a counterpart is something that corresponds to another in what is necessary, possible, and impossible, then nothing shares with Him—glory be to Him—what is necessary for Him, impossible for Him, and possible for Him. If we consider in the abstract the common aspect in which the Creator and the creature agree—such as what is denoted by existence, reality, being knowing and being powerful, and the like—this exists only in minds, not in concrete entities.

A created being does not share any of its attributes with another created being, so how could the Creator have a partner in them? Yet a created being may have another that resembles it in its attributes, whereas Allah Most High has no likeness whatsoever. The abstract common aspect, such as existence, knowledge, reality, and the like, does not necessarily entail any deficient attribute that is impossible for Allah Most High. Whatever is necessary to this abstract common aspect contains neither deficiency nor defect; whatever is excluded from it contains no perfection; and there is nothing objectionable in what is possible for it.