and his humours. Although such a thing was created with its parts already united in this way, it can nevertheless be separated, taken apart, and divided. Allah is far above that.

The term “composite” may also be applied to something that can be separated and taken apart, even if it is something simple, such as water. Allah is far above that.

These, then, are the intelligible senses of composition in ordinary language and technical usage. In ordinary language, however, “composite” applies specifically to the first sense. But this is not the meaning they intended by the term “composite.”

Some scholars may call the second and third kinds composite. As for an essence characterized by attributes inseparable from it, possessing a reality that distinguishes it from all other realities and sets it apart from other existing things, without being susceptible to separation, partition, fragmentation, or division—even if it were supposed to be created, it would not be among the things called composite in established linguistic or technical usage.

If someone calls such an essence composite, he is either mistaken in his reasoning, believing that it comprises two realities—its existence and its reality distinct from its existence—or two realities consisting of a self-subsisting essence conceived as independent of its attributes, together with attributes additional to it and subsisting in it; or discrete or intelligible substances; or other such things that some people affirm and call composition.