The Essence is never found except together with its attribute that inseparably accompanies it, nor is the attribute ever found except together with the Essence that inseparably accompanies it. If, perchance, one intends by “composition” a composition of sensible or intelligible parts that are mutually concomitant, then that is all the term signifies.

Accordingly, when it is said, “Every composite depends on its part,” if what is meant is merely that the composite entails its part and cannot exist without it, that is correct, for the whole cannot exist apart from each of its individual constituents. But if what is intended is that the composite depends on its part as an effect depends on its efficient cause, or as a caused thing depends on its efficient, material, final, or formal cause, then that is false; for a single element among ten, or a part of a whole, can never serve as an efficient cause, a final cause, or the very form of the whole.

As for your statement, “its part is other than it,” the word “other” (ghayr) may be used for something that is separate from a thing, for something that can be detached from it, or simply for something that is not identical with it. If you mean that a part of a whole is separate from that whole, this is false, for it cannot be separate from it while still being a part of it; it therefore cannot be “other” in that sense. And if you mean that it can be detached, this is not universally true: in some cases a part can indeed be detached from the other parts and from the composite configuration, but this is not required in every composite—especially by your own principles, for you hold that the celestial sphere is composed of its parts and attributes, yet its parts, you say, are incapable of separation.

Muslims—and, indeed, the majority of rational people—affirm that God is Living, Knowing, and All-Powerful, and it is impossible for His being Living, Knowing, and All-Powerful ever to be severed from Him. He has ever been and will ever remain so. His being Living, Knowing, and All-Powerful is a necessary concomitant of His Essence, inseparable from it in every respect; hence these attributes cannot be “others” in that regard.

And if “two distincts” are defined as two things of which neither is the other, or as things such that one may be known while the other is not, then there is no doubt that an attribute of the subject, which can be known