hold that He must be co-located with the world and accompany it likewise make Him dependent on the world. The unionists explicitly affirm all of this.

In this connection, a learned man known for his accuracy related to me that the shaykh and judge Taqī al-Dīn Muhammad al-Qushayrī, known as Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd—may Allah have mercy on him—said: “When Shaykh ʿIzz al-Dīn ibn ʿAbd al-Salām—may Allah sanctify his soul—came to us in Egypt, we asked him about Ibn ʿArabī. He replied, ‘An evil, despicable shaykh and a liar. He professes the eternity of the world and regards no sexual relations as forbidden.’ He then explained these descriptions of him.”

I said to the man who related this to me: “The true nature of his doctrine had not yet been understood. How can his position be compared with that of those who profess the eternity of the world? They affirm a world and a necessarily existent being distinct from it, from whom it emanated, even though their position is false on another count.