He must resemble something else. This differs from saying that one is living and another living, one knowing and another knowing, or one powerful and another powerful: such agreement in attributes does not entail likeness in essence. Thus, whoever says, ‘He is a body unlike other bodies,’ would be likening Him to His creation, unlike someone who says, ‘He is living unlike other living beings.’”

This objection is raised by some followers of al-Ash‘arī and those followers of Mālik, al-Shāfi‘ī, and Ahmad who agree with them.

The response is: If the person addressing you denies that He resembles anything else and rejects likening Him to His creation, as we do, while you and he disagree over whether the referent of a particular term resembles anything else, then this is a terminological and rational dispute, not a dispute over a religious matter. If they refrained from discussing this, religion would suffer no harm whatsoever. Each could express his religious intent in undisputed terms. This comparison would thus remain expressed in undisputed terms and meanings, while the other would affirm that the Lord is self-subsisting, distinct from His creation, and above His Throne, using undisputed terms and meanings. Neither would need to use the word “body,” whether to deny or affirm it.

If you say: “Our dispute concerns something else, namely, whether He is to be called a body: is He composed of indivisible atoms, or of matter and form, or is He one, without composition? Whoever holds the first view may not call Him a body, whereas whoever holds the second calls Him a body.”

The response is: This is a dispute that has no bearing on religion, for inquiry into a term’s