and particles, just as a house is built out of a roof, walls, and a floor, and just as the human body is composed of its distinct limbs and its blended humors. To divide the body into limbs and humors, then, is to divide a whole into its parts, and in such a division the name of the whole cannot be truthfully applied to each part: not every limb is a body, nor every humor a body, nor every piece of a roof a house. The same holds for the face: when one says it is divided into brow, nose, eye, cheek, and the like, none of these single parts is itself a face. Examples of this sort are many.

As for universals, they exist only in the mind, not in external reality; thus the division adopted by the earlier scholars is clearer than that adopted by the later ones.

Meaning of kalima and harf in Arabic usage
The later grammarians treated kalima as a generic term covering these various kinds of words, yet in the language of the Arabs the word kalima is found only as a name for a complete utterance—whether nominal or verbal. This is shown by the Prophet’s saying, peace and blessings be upon him:

“Two statements that are light on the tongue, beloved to the Most Merciful, and heavy on the scales: ‘Subḥān Allāh wa bi-ḥamdih; Subḥān Allāh al-ʿAẓīm.’”

He also said, “The truest statement ever uttered by a poet is the statement of Labīd:
Indeed, everything apart from God is futile …”

And he said concerning women, “You have taken them on the strength of Allah’s trust and made their private parts lawful for you by the word of Allah.”

Likewise, the Exalted says,
“And He made the word of those who disbelieved the lowest, while the word of Allah is the highest” (Q 9:40),

and He says,
“—and to warn those who say, ‘Allah has taken a child.’ They have no knowledge of it, nor did their forefathers …” (Q 18:4).