A body is substance together with the accidents from which it is inseparable. Any accidents from which it can be free are not part of the body, but are other than the body. He used to say that a body is a place. He argued that the Creator, exalted is He, is not a body, since if He were a body, He would be a place. He also argued that if He were a body, He would have a half.

He said: Dirār ibn ʿAmr said that a body is made up of accidents composed and brought together, which then subsist and become established, thus forming a body capable of bearing accidents when they inhere in it and of changing from one state to another. These accidents are those of which bodies must possess either the accident itself or its opposite: for example, life and death, one of which every body must possess; colours and tastes, of which a body must possess one variety from each category; likewise weight, such as heaviness and lightness; likewise roughness and softness, heat and cold, moisture and dryness; and likewise