 Despite their rejection of conceptually minimal parts, certain Muslim philosophers, following Aristotle (Physics, 1.4, 187b13–21) and some of this Greek commentators such as John Philoponus (d. 570), conceded that bodies do have physically minimal parts. To be exact they recognized minima naturalia, that is limits to how far a specific kind of body, like water or flesh, could physically be divided and still remain that specific kind of body and not instead be converted into some other kind of body (Avicenna, 2009, III.12, 2–9; Averroes, 1962, ad 1.4 &amp; 3.7; for studies see Glasner, 2001 &amp; 2009, ch. 8; Cerami, 2012; McGinnis, 2015). In order to appreciate one version of their argument for minima naturalia (Avicenna 2009, III.12, 8), one must first consider the theory of the elements and elemental change, which it presupposes. According to ancient and medieval elemental theory there are associated with each of the traditional four elements two primary qualities, one each from two pairs. These pairs include the primary qualities hot/cold and wet/dry. The element earth is associated with the qualities cold-dry, water with cold-wet, air with hot-wet and fire with hot-dry. These primary qualities are related to the elements’ material cause. When these primary qualities are altered through a process of physical causation—that is, there is some motion or change in the element such as an increase or decrease in the degree of hotness, coldness, dryness or wetness—the alteration prepares or pre-disposes the underlying matter so that it is suited to receive a new substantial form. So, for example, when water, which again is associated with a cold-wet combination, is sufficiently heated, the underlying qualitative disposition is no longer suited to the substantial form of water. Consequently, at some point in the heating process the matter receives a new substantial form that is compatible with the matter’s new underlying qualitative disposition, namely, the matter receives the form of air. And, indeed, the steam produced from vigorously heating water does have a definite air-like quality. An account similar to the one just limned also applies to more complex cases of mixtures, like blood, flesh, and seeds, which are involved in animal and plant generation.