had they worshiped everything, they would not have been at fault; for, in their estimation, a fully realized gnostic is not harmed by worshiping idols.

A Word on Their Call to Abandon Reason and Revelation

What flagrant unbelief this entails! It plunges them into perpetual self-contradiction, for one may at once ask: Who, then, is the one in error? Yet they reply:

“The Lord is characterized by every defect with which the creature is described, and created beings are characterized by every perfection with which the Creator is described.” They also repeat the remark of the author of al-Fuṣūṣ: “The One who is sublime in Himself is He who possesses the perfection that embraces every existential attribute and every privative relation, whether such qualities are deemed praiseworthy by custom, reason, or the Law, or blameworthy by custom, reason, and the Law. That belongs to none but the One named Allah alone.”

Despite this unbelief, their contradictions remain unresolved, for sense-perception and reason alike testify that this is not that. Yet they still maintain—just as al-Tilimsānī used to say—“Through unveiling we have established things that contradict plain reason.” They further declare, “Whoever seeks realization—meaning realization as we understand it—must abandon both reason and the revealed Law.”

I said to one of them whom I addressed: “It is universally acknowledged that the unveiling granted to the prophets is greater and more complete than the unveiling granted to anyone else, and that their report is truer than anyone else’s. The prophets—peace and blessings be upon them—inform of matters that human intellects are powerless to know, not of things that people already know through their intellects to be…"