This point constitutes a clear proof for anyone who reflects upon it.

To explain: people disagree over affirming Allah’s attributes. Ahl al-Sunnah affirm Allah’s attributes, and many philosophers and Shia agree with them on this. As for the Jahmiyya and others—such as the Mutazila (1), along with those Shia and philosophers who agree with them, such as Ibn Sīnā and others like him—they deny the attributes of Allah Most High. They say (2): affirming them entails corporealism, assimilation, and composition. (3)

[The philosophers’ principal basis for denying the attributes is the argument from composition]

The principal basis upon which Ibn Sīnā [and his peers] (4) deny them is (5) the argument from composition: if He had an attribute, He would be composite; anything composite depends upon its two parts; its two parts (6) are distinct from it; and whatever depends upon something else cannot be necessary in itself.

People have refuted this argument in many ways, because the terms “composition,” “part,” “dependence,” and “other” are equivocal. “Composite” may refer to something put together by another; something that was dispersed and then assembled; or something capable of being separated. By consensus, Allah—Glorified is He—is exalted above all of this. As for an essence possessing attributes inseparable from it, if someone chooses to call this “composition,” that is merely his own terminology and is not what is ordinarily understood by the word “composite.”

When an inquiry concerns rational meanings, no consideration is given to the particular terminology used.