except a body or an accident, since the indivisible atom is a part of a body. Thus, these words do not accord with their position. Moreover, considered in themselves, they might be described as an ecstatic utterance rather than a statement of reality.

What, then, is that which manifests through a body? Is it the body itself or something else? If it is the body itself, it would be incorrect to say, “That whose manifestation is the body.” If it is something else, and this is conceded to him, what warrants singling it out for discussion rather than the body? That an accident necessarily accompanies a body is clearer than its necessarily accompanying something that is not a body.

Furthermore, saying that an accident necessarily accompanies it follows the method of some practitioners of the newly introduced discipline of kalām, who argue that bodies have a beginning because accidents necessarily accompany them. We have discussed elsewhere the inconsistencies in this method. It is not the method of the spiritual masters and those who know Allah.

One of the most favourable interpretations of these words is as follows: if their speaker intended to refute the doctrine of indwelling and union, and the manifestation of divinity in humanity—to affirm that the Lord, glorified is He, does not dwell in any created thing or manifest in any created body, contrary to those who say that He manifested in the Messiah, in ʿAlī, in al-Hallāj, and the like, as asserted by those among them who specify particular individuals, or those who assert this of all created things, following the doctrine of Ibn al-ʿArabī, Ibn Sabʿīn, and others like them—then his statement, “He bound all things to having a beginning,” means that He made this inseparable from them, never departing from them. Thus, that which has a beginning cannot become beginningless.

His statement, “Whatever manifests through a body,” means anything that manifests through these bodies, among the things that