yellow, in which case they may say that it has changed. They also say that the air has changed when it becomes cold after being warm, but they hardly ever call its mere blowing a change. Even if they do, they distinguish between the two.

The point is that some claim that Allah’s creation of these things from one another consists solely in changing their attributes, and that the reality of everything consists of identical, enduring fundamental substances whose essential nature never changes at all, although the number of those parts increases or decreases. This claim has no basis in reality. It entails false propositions, including the existence of created, self-subsisting substances beyond these observable entities. That is false and has no basis in reality.

Their positing of these sensible substances is akin to others’ positing of self-subsisting intelligible substances beyond these observable entities, which they call matter and form. They also assert that these substances are alike and that observable entities are alike—another claim without any basis in reality.

Thus, the claim that Allah’s creation of animals, plants, and minerals amounts merely to bringing about attributes and properties, involving no creation of anything self-subsisting and no bringing into being of self-subsisting bodies or substances—as when winds and waters are moved and water is distributed through its channels—is likewise among the most utterly false claims.

This is one of these people’s gravest errors, for they have taken those things that are among the greatest signs of the Lord, indicating and bearing witness to His existence, power, will, and knowledge