He went on to say: “So I asked him, ‘If all is but one reality, why is my daughter forbidden to me while my wife is lawful?’ He replied, ‘In our view there is no difference between wife and daughter; everything is permissible. It is only those who remain veiled who pronounce it unlawful—so we said to them: it is forbidden for you.’

He also related: ‘When I read al-Niffarī’s Mawāqif to him, I kept forcing an interpretation passage after passage until his true intent—impossible to disguise—became clear, namely his assertion of absolute oneness. I objected, “This contradicts the Qur’an, the Sunnah, and the consensus.” He retorted, “If you seek this ultimate realization, then leave the Qur’an, the Sunnah, and the consensus behind.” I replied, “That is out of the question,” and other such words were exchanged.’

It is well established that the pillars of faith are three: belief in God, in His messengers, and in the Last Day. They have deviated in all three. Concerning belief in God, they have made the existence of the created identical with the existence of the Creator—this is the height of negation. Regarding belief in the Last Day, Ibn ʿArabi claimed that the inhabitants of Hell enjoy themselves therein just as the people of Paradise enjoy themselves in Paradise, and that it is called punishment only because of the sweetness of its taste; and he even recited on the matter