to certain of the divine commands. When one of them pushes further down this road, he drifts into sheer permissiveness and moral dissolution. He may even ascend to a corruption of monotheism, slipping into the doctrines of ittiḥād (union) and restricted ḥulūl (indwelling), as has happened to many a shaykh. Passages in the writings of the author of Manāzil al-Sāʾirīn and others can lead to the same outcome.

Some of them press on to “absolute union” and the claim of the unity of existence, holding that Allah is identical with absolute existence itself. Thus the author of al-Futūḥāt al-Makkīyah says at the very beginning:

The Lord is real, and the servant is real—
Oh, would that I knew: which of the two is bound by the Law?