he may be told:

The Book and the Sunnah are replete with affirmations of the soul’s attributes, indicating that it can be pointed to and that, according to your terminology, it is a body. They speak of its being taken, its return and ascent, its entry among His servants and into His Paradise, its entering and leaving the physical body, its ascending to heaven, and its being in the crops of green birds, along with other attributes which you yourselves say can belong only to a body.

As for the word “body” in Arabic, it means the physical body, or its thickness and density. As He says:

“And has increased him abundantly in knowledge and stature.” [Al-Baqarah: 247]

And He says:

“When you see them, their bodies impress you.” [Al-Munāfiqūn: 4]

One also says, “This cloth has body,” meaning thickness and density. These meanings do not apply to the spirit, so it would not be appropriate to refer to it as a “body” in Arabic. Rather, people say “body and spirit,” thus distinguishing what is meant by bodies from what is meant by spirits.

If, among entities that subsist in themselves and are described as rising and ascending, entering and leaving, and the like, there are those that are not called bodies in Arabic, then it does not follow that everything that subsists in itself must be called a body in that language.

In your terminology, however, a body is whatever can be pointed to. Whatever is described as ascending or descending is, according to you, a body; and whatever has attributes subsisting in it is, according to you, a body. Thus, according to your terminology, the spirit must be a body. The fact that the Lawgiver has not stated this provides no evidence for your position.