to the heart that one is not the other, are inescapable, as is already known under every assumption. To deny these meanings is to deny every existent: this is the very height and limit of sophistry. It encompasses every form of disbelief and error, and contradicts all sensory perception and reason.

If this distinction entails that reality in itself involves some kind of distinction, this is not incompatible with the oneness that is necessary and actual. For if this does not prevent many created beings from being one, then all the more should it not prevent the Creator from being One. Moreover, His oneness has distinctive qualities the like of which cannot belong to any created being. Nothing whatsoever is like Him in any respect, whereas others have their counterparts. Allah Most High says:

“And of everything We have created pairs, so that you may take heed.” {49} [al-Dhāriyāt 49]

He said: “Thus you come to know that the Creator of the pairs is One.” And if it is said—as some people say—that this distinction