associating partners with Allah and stripping Him of His attributes. It is therefore not surprising that some of them should say such things—especially when they distinguish between His tajallī dhātī (self-manifestation of the Essence) and His tajallī asmāʾī (manifestation through the Names)(1). Thus they may claim: the self-manifestation is the Necessary Being, whereas the manifestation through the Names is the contingent being; indeed, they assert that He is the absolute existence predicated equally of the Necessary and the contingent.

The second statement(2) maintains that He is identical with existence itself, while the existents are His parts and limbs, not merely His species. These people acknowledge that He exists, yet they hold that He is none other than the very creatures themselves. The first group, by contrast, do not regard Him as an external existent; rather, they see Him as the absolute, which, once it appears in the external world, becomes particular and is no longer absolute.

Even so,(3) they still debate another question: do the contingent beings(4) possess real, fixed essences in the realm of knowledge besides His existence, or is He Himself the very reality of those contingents(5)? Here, too, they split into two opinions: the first is that of the author of the Manṣūṣ(6) among them, while the second is followed by his adherents such as al-Qūnawī, al-Tilmīsānī(7), and others. Yet the doctrine of these latter—though it has led astray groups of highly intelligent