[Most Misguidance Arises from Resemblance]
There are no two entities except that they coincide in one respect and differ in another; hence they resemble each other from one angle and diverge from another. Because of this overlap the children of Adam have gone astray, and the damage caused by unsound analogy knows no bounds. Imam Ahmad (d. 241 AH) said, “Most of people’s mistakes come from interpretation and analogy: interpretation with respect to the textual proofs and analogy with respect to the rational proofs.” His remark is entirely accurate, for erroneous interpretation occurs only in ambiguous wording, and faulty analogy occurs only in ambiguous meanings.

[Groups That Went Astray for This Reason]
Human beings have fallen into virtually every form of deviation encompassed by this observation. Matters even reached the point where some who claimed realization, monotheism, and mystical insight confused the Lord’s existence with the existence of every created thing, imagining them to be one and the same. They therefore asserted that the existence of the creatures is the very existence of the Creator—yet nothing is more distant from resembling, being identical to, uniting with, or inhering in another than the Creator is from the creature.