They persist in these negative formulations and declare, “We neither say that He exists nor that He does not exist,” or, “He is neither existent nor non-existent.” At one moment they eliminate both contraries; at another they refuse to affirm either of them. Sometimes they apply this tactic to the very notion of existence, and sometimes to the predicates of the existent—life, knowledge, power, speech, and the rest of the attributes. In the end they abolished all reality and began to label every positive meaning a “composition,” as noted earlier. Yet we have already shown that calling this a composition is merely a convention of their own making, for in the accepted Arabic usage the affirmation of such meanings is not called composition. A thing is regarded as composite only when some composer has assembled its parts, and that idea is impossible with regard to the One who exists by Himself, is independent of all else, acts upon all else, and whose every other thing is His creation. Should it be posited that He possesses multiple attributes, no one has assembled Him, nor have those attributes been assembled within Him.

People have long debated created bodies—the stars, the celestial sphere, the air, the water, and so forth. Some claim they are composed of discrete, indivisible particles; others, that they are composed of matter and form; still others distinguish between celestial and elemental bodies. The sound view, championed by the most exacting investigators of every school, is that they are composed of neither. This is the position held by the majority of rational theologians such as the Hishāmiyyah, Darrāriyyah, Najjāriyyah, Kullābiyyah, a group of the Karrāmiyyah, and others.

There is likewise a dispute among people over whether a body can be divided endlessly or only up to a determinate limit.