monotheism—that is, to bear witness that Allah is the Lord, Sovereign, and Creator of everything. This is considered all the more perfect when the “knower” becomes oblivious to his own existence before the Truly Existent, to his act of witnessing before the Witnessed, and to his knowledge before the One Known, entering the state of fanāʾ (annihilation) in the oneness of lordship, so that what never was passes away while He who never ceased remains. In their estimation, this is the ultimate station beyond which there is none. Yet it is obvious that this is nothing more than a precise articulation of the monotheism that the idolaters themselves acknowledged, and by this monotheism alone a person does not even become a Muslim—much less a friend of Allah or one of the foremost saints.
Another faction among the Sufis and claimants to gnosis affirm this monotheism along with