than that, and they say: “The Christians fell into disbelief only because they restricted indwelling.” This is what the proponents of union—the followers of the author of (al-Fusūs) and others like him—say, and they are numerous among the Jahmīs.

Indeed, most of the Jahmīs’ devotees and jurists, and most of those among them who claim to have attained true understanding, belong to this group, such as Ibn al-Fārid, Ibn Sabʿīn, al-Qūnawī, al-Tilimsānī, and others like them.

Thus, when a Jahmī who maintains that He is everywhere, while also maintaining that His existence is other than the existence of created beings—or who affirms union in one respect and distinctness in another, as is the position of Ibn ʿArabī and others like him—says, as Imam Ahmad reported of them: “He is everywhere, neither in contact with places nor distinct from them, and He indwells the world or is united with it, but not as accidents and bodies indwell bodies,” or makes similar statements, then those who agree with them in denying His distinctness from the world, such as al-Rāzī and others like him, argue on the basis of the following claim:

“Indwelling is conceivable only if that which indwells depends upon the locus in which it dwells. Indwelling must be either contingent or necessary. If it is contingent, dependence upon the locus is negated. This would entail affirming two contradictories together: that it depends upon the locus and does not depend upon it, since its indwelling is contingent rather than necessary. If indwelling is necessary, then that which indwells is not necessary through itself, but through another.”