The term “composite” may be used for something whose constituents can, in principle, be separated from one another—such as the limbs of a human being—even though no actual separation occurred at the outset. It can also be applied to whatever one points at, like the sun or the celestial sphere, before it is known that separation from it is even possible. Likewise, it may be employed when one aspect of a thing can be grasped apart from another, as when one knows that it is all-powerful before knowing that it is all-hearing and all-seeing.

In light of this, it is evident that when they claim that affirming the divine attributes entails composition, they are not referring to the first two senses just mentioned. Affirming the attributes is necessary with respect to God Most High; it is impossible for any perfection to be removed from Him, and impossible for anything contrary to His absolute self-sufficiency—such as disintegration—to apply to Him. For He is the One, the Self-Sufficient (al-Ṣamad), who neither begets nor is begotten.

Likewise, when they say that whatever is composite depends upon its parts, the word “part” may mean something added to something else until a whole is obtained—such as one unit out of ten, or a piece of food or cloth. It may also denote a constituent of something even if that constituent is never known, or cannot exist, apart from the whole. Under this heading they sometimes include life, which is inseparable from the living, and knowledge, which is inseparable from the knower. Thus they speak of animality and rationality as “parts” of the human being, even though both are indispensable attributes that cannot be absent from him.

Similarly, the term “need” (iftiqār) may refer to the dependence of an effect upon its cause or of an artifact upon its maker. It can also refer to an attribute’s dependence on the subject in which it inheres, or it may simply denote mutual implication—that the entity necessarily entails its own attributes of perfection.