in existence, a “body” on linguistic grounds. They said: “Arabic speakers apply the word ‘body’ only to what is composite.”
The truth is that both parties misuse the language: those who call everything that subsists in itself a body, and those who call everything that can be pointed to and toward which hands are raised a body, claiming that everything of this kind is composite and that Arabic speakers apply the word “body” to everything composite. Thus, both parties share in linguistic error and religious innovation.
As for the meanings intended, whoever among either party affirms what Allah and His Messenger have denied, or denies what Allah and His Messenger have affirmed, is mistaken according to reason just as he is mistaken according to revelation.
Indeed, the former say to the latter: “We and you agree that, outside the point at issue, whatever subsists in itself is called a body. You then claim that the Creator, who subsists in Himself, has a distinguishing feature that precludes applying this designation, which we and you have agreed upon. We have shown that He has no such distinguishing feature, because that claim rests on the premise that bodies are composite. We dispute this and say that they are not composed of indivisible atoms.”
For this reason, the early generations and the leading scholars—such as Imam Ahmad and others—disapproved of countering an innovation with another innovation. Thus, when Ahmad debated the Jahmiyya and they argued that the Quran was created, Abū ‘Īsā Muhammad ibn ‘Īsā Burghūth sought to compel him to accept that, if it were uncreated, Allah would necessarily be a body, which was ruled out. Ahmad would agree neither to deny this nor to affirm it. Rather, he said:
“Say, ‘He is Allah, One;
Allah, the Eternal Refuge.
He neither begets nor is born,
nor is there to Him any equivalent.’”