He also said, “The knowledge of fanāʾ and baqāʾ—annihilation and subsistence—turns on the pure affirmation of divine oneness and the soundness of servitude; anything else is nothing but sophistry and heresy.” (1)

I replied, “By Allah, you have spoken the truth, for fanāʾ and baqāʾ are among the Sufi fables: someone coined the term, and through that doorway every heretic has entered, saying,

‘Everything apart from Allah is false and perishing; Allah—exalted is He—is the Ever-Abiding, and He is these very beings; nothing exists besides Him.’

Their poet puts it:
‘You are nothing but the universe—indeed, you are its very essence!’

Another says:
‘There is nothing here but Allah; none besides Him.’

Look, then, at this apostasy and misguidance! Rather, everything other than Allah is a newly originated creation. Allah, exalted be He, says: “He created the heavens and the earth and whatever lies between them in six days.” (2)

What the early Sufis really intended by fanāʾ was to forget created things, leave them aside, and for the self to cease being preoccupied with anything other than Allah. Yet even this cannot be accepted without qualification, for Allah and His Messenger have commanded us to engage with created beings, to observe them, to turn toward them, and thereby magnify their Creator. He, exalted be He, said: “Have they not looked into the dominion of the heavens and the earth and at all that Allah has created?” (3)

And He said: “Say, ‘Observe what is in the heavens and the earth.’” (4)