certain times, just as he is taken apart at other times. Neither being brought together nor being taken apart is therefore inseparable from him; rather, he depends on another in both respects. Likewise, whatever divinity is said to unite within him or with him is separate from him at another time.

As for his statement, “Whatever is sustained by another is subject to need,” this is a fine statement, and it is true. Everything other than Allah is sustained by another. Allah is the Ever-Living, the All-Sustaining, whom neither drowsiness nor sleep overtakes. He subsists by Himself and sustains everything. Whatever is sustained by another necessarily depends on that other and therefore cannot be the Lord. This indicates that none of these beings has any share in divinity or lordship, since need is inseparable from them all.

As for his statement, “Whatever imagination grasps is accessible to representation,” two points may be made.

First, whatever a servant imagines can only be a necessity given form. Yet this does not demonstrate the invalidity of either what is imagined or the form itself.

Second, representation may mean a person’s forming an image of it in his own mind. In that case, representing it is the same as grasping it in imagination. The statement thus amounts to saying that whatever a servant imagines, he has formed an image of. This adds nothing. For representation must mean either that the thing itself has a form, or that the servant has formed an image of it in his mind. A form can only be either an objective form existing in external reality or a mental form in a person’s mind, for example, or in some comparable locus in which it can be conceived. Speech that merely repeats itself without adding anything is a form of shath; if it lacks proof, it is an unsupported claim.