are thought to be the True God manifesting in bodies. An accident necessarily accompanies whatever manifests in a body, just as it necessarily accompanies the body itself. Thus, whatever manifests in the body has the same status as the body itself: there is no more reason to regard one as the Lord and Creator and the other as created than to reverse their roles.

Likewise, his statement, “Whatever is held together by instruments is sustained by their powers,” refutes those who maintain that the soul is beginningless or that the Creator dwells in the created being. For a person’s instruments—his limbs and organs—are what hold it together, and their powers sustain it. It is therefore dependent upon them and in need of them. Whatever needs something else cannot be the self-sufficient True God, and thus cannot be Allah. This does not address the attributes of the True God Himself, either by denying or affirming them, endorsing one doctrine or rejecting another. No one has ever said that the True God is held together by instruments. Even those misguided corporealists who describe Him as having limbs and organs do not say that these hold Him together.

If being held together by them is intended to mean that He cannot be without them, then the statement, “He is sustained by their powers,” amounts to saying that He cannot be without them; neither statement refutes the other. Rather, in their view, these are inseparable from Him just as His attributes are inseparable from Him. This does not entail His needing anything other than Himself, just as He subsists by Himself and is self-sufficient, without being described as dependent upon another. Whatever is inseparable from His essence is included in what His name denotes; thus, He would not be dependent upon anything other than Himself.

Likewise, his statement, “What one time brings together, another time takes apart,” aptly refutes the doctrine of those who assert union with God. For a human being is brought together and constituted at