pure existence, absolute existence, or the like, claim to be the furthest of all people from likening Him to creation, and to be the true monotheists who fully affirm His oneness. They even deny His attributes and names in order, they claim, to rule out any likeness to Him. Yet they go further than anyone in likening Him to creation, equating Him with it, and associating partners with Him. They have set up rivals to Allah alongside their denial of His reality. They are the furthest of all people from affirming the unique oneness of Allah Most High, by which He is distinct from all His creatures.

For they have made His reality absolute existence, yet this much is true of every existing thing. They have thus made His reality something common to everything, making Allah’s reality something shared by the mosquito and the ant—indeed, even the dog and the pig. They may explicitly declare that the existence of the dog and the pig is identical to His existence. This is among the gravest forms of associating partners with the Lord of all worlds and disbelieving in Him. It also amounts to denying Allah’s reality, since absolute existence exists only in a particular existent. Thus, if no existing reality unique to Him and separate from other existing things is affirmed for Him, it necessarily follows that