or one of its attributes. Thus some of them claim that it is the nafs, or the breath that circulates through the body; others maintain that it is life itself, or the temperament, or even the body in its very essence.

There are also groups of philosophers who describe it with the very predicates they assign to what they call the Necessary Existent—qualities that, in fact, can belong only to what is impossible to exist. They say: it is neither inside the body nor outside it; neither separate from it nor fused with it; neither in motion nor at rest; it neither ascends nor descends; and it is neither a substance nor an accident. They add that it does not apprehend particular, concrete realities that exist outside, but only universal, abstract concepts. They further assert that it is neither within the world nor outside it, neither apart from it nor mingled with it. Indeed, they sometimes insist that it is in none of the bodies of the universe yet not outside them either—and since they define a body as anything that can be pointed to by the senses, they end up describing the spirit as something to which no sensory indication can be made, piling on negative attributes that reduce it to sheer non-existence and impossibility.