in its attributes nor in its size. Yet it resembles and represents it in some respect, and resemblance in one respect does not entail likeness in essence, attributes, and size.

Within this perceptual representation, things that are contraries in external reality can coexist: representations of blackness and whiteness can coexist within it, as can two like instances, such as two instances of blackness. Representations of a thing’s existence and nonexistence can also coexist within it, so that both existence and nonexistence can be conceived together. The coexistence of representations of two contradictories is not impossible within it, whereas the coexistence of the contradictories themselves is impossible in external reality. Within it, one can represent the existent, the nonexistent, and the impossible—both what exists externally and what does not.

In this respect, it is broader than external existence. Yet these things are imaginary representations, not realities existing in themselves.

Some people may become confused about what they imagine within it and suppose that it exists externally. A group of Sufi philosophers, such as Ibn ʿArabī, call this the land of reality and describe within it worlds, their kinds, and their dimensions at great length.

This is because imagination has no limit; indeed, the soul’s imaginings of things that have no external existence are too numerous to encompass.

Thus these misguided people said, “This is the land of reality,” and it is the world of imagination. Some of them may become confused and suppose that it exists externally. Within it, cities, men, and worlds appear to them in imagination, just as things appear to someone asleep. One of them may imagine that he has become a god or a prophet, or that he is the Mahdī or the Seal of the Saints, and other such things that would take too long