and His words, “No private conversation of three takes place without Him being their fourth” (58:7). This verse neither revokes the previous ones nor stands in opposition to them.

Know that the meaning of these verses is not that Allah intended, in His very essence, to dwell inside created things—so that He would be found in their lowest reaches, or move about within them because of their lowness, or be divided among them according to their dimensions, or withdraw from them when they pass away. Exalted and Mighty is He far above such notions. Yet some of the misguided have been lured into this error: they claimed that Allah is present, in His very self, within every single thing just as He is within the Throne, seeing no distinction between the two; then they referred