independent of the Creator, and the view of those who regard essences as distinct from existing concrete entities. If either of these two positions is combined with the claim that existence is one and that necessary existence is identical with contingent existence, it follows that the existence of concrete entities and their established reality must each depend upon the other, and that necessary existence depends upon entities that are independent of it, as the author of al-Fusūs maintains.

Alternatively, the existence of concrete entities—which these people identify with necessary existence—would depend upon essences that are independent of it, as others among them maintain.

Ibn Sab‘īn and others like him say:

“He is in everything in the form of that thing: in water He is water; in fire, light; in what is sweet, sweet; and in what is bitter, bitter.”

Some form of indwelling and union has appeared in the statements of a number of Sufi shaykhs. For this reason, their leading authorities, such as al-Junayd and others like him, spoke in terms of distinctness, as in al-Junayd’s statement:

“Affirming Allah’s oneness means distinguishing that which has a beginning from that which has none.”

In the statements of al-Shādhilī, al-Harālī, indeed Ibn Barrajān, and even Abū Tālib and others, there are instances of