And the extremists among them—and their more sophisticated exponents—declare: “He is identical with existence itself; existence is one and the same.” In this way they equate the necessary, pre-eternal existence of the Creator with the contingent, originated existence of the creature. Adherents of this view include Ibn ʿArabi al-Taʾi, his disciple Sadr al-Qunawi, his associate al-ʿAfif al-Tilmisani, Ibn Sabʿin and his follower al-Shushtari, ʿAbd Allah al-Bilyani, ʿAmir al-Basri, and many others besides. They go on to say, “The Christians became unbelievers only because they confined this belief to the Messiah alone.”