and clouds and other things amounts merely to gathering atoms together, separating them, and changing their attributes from one state to another—not to His bringing into existence any self-subsisting atoms or bodies. Most rational people reject this view and say that it contradicts sensory experience, reason, and revelation. Still less, then, can the word “body” in Arabic necessarily imply this meaning.

Furthermore, “body” may mean thickness itself, which is an accident inhering in something else; or it may mean the thick object, which subsists in itself. Thus we say, “This cloth has body,” meaning thickness. His words,

“and increased him abundantly in knowledge and stature,”

may be cited in support of this, since He pairs “body” with “knowledge,” which is a verbal noun. We would then say that the meaning is that He increased his size, making his body larger than those of others. Thus, “body” would mean size itself, rather than the thing possessing that size.

Likewise, His words, Most High,

“their bodies impress you,”

may mean their forms, which inhere in their bodies—just as you might say, “His attractiveness, beauty, complexion, and radiance impressed me.” The intended meaning may therefore be an attribute of bodies, or it may be the bodies themselves.

When they say, “This one is more corpulent than that one,” they mean that it is thicker and larger. As for their intending thereby that this size and thickness result from a greater number of parts, it is known with certainty that this never occurred to speakers of the language, except those who acquired it from adherents of the newly introduced speculative theology who held this belief. That theology was introduced into Islam after the generation of the Companions and most of the Successors had passed away. For this was not