and the like. This, in reality, denies that He is the First and affirms that the world coexists with Him in time; the other view denies that He is the Ascendant and affirms that the world coexists with Him in space. Both positions ultimately amount to denying the Creator and maintaining that nothing exists apart from this world. Hence the advocates of union with God and others of their kind openly declare this, saying that the world is His very reality and identity. This is, in truth, the position of those who deny the Creator, as Pharaoh openly did. Their leading figures therefore acknowledge that they hold Pharaoh’s view. I had pointed out to someone knowledgeable and truthful that their position necessarily entailed Pharaoh’s view, whereupon he told me that one of their leading figures had said to him: “We hold Pharaoh’s view.”

Allah, glorified be He, is before all times and above all places. Yet the mind conceives of a span of time by which He precedes the world, and a spatial interval by which He stands above it, as previously explained. These are two mentally posited things that, according to most people, have no existence outside the mind.

There is, however, an essential difference between the two kinds: the imagined duration and actually existing time entail one thing following another; their beginning and end do not coexist at a single moment.