namely, demonstrating that substances cannot be devoid of accidents—the position adopted by the people of truth is that a substance cannot be devoid of an accident of any given kind and all its opposites at once, [if it has opposites]. If it has only one opposite, the substance cannot be devoid of both opposites. If an accident with no opposite is postulated, the substance cannot be devoid of receiving an instance of that kind.”

He said:

“The atheists allowed that a substance could be devoid of all accidents. In their terminology, substances are called ‘hyle’ and ‘matter’, while accidents are called ‘form’.”

He said:

“Al-Sālihī allowed substances to be devoid of all accidents initially. The Basran Mu‘tazilah denied that substances could be devoid of all spatial states, but allowed