—some of them—that He is identical with existing things and that their existence is His very existence. They may also say that He is the spirit of the world and that the world is His form. In their doctrine of universal indwelling, they are thus like the Christians in their doctrine of particular indwelling. We have discussed at length elsewhere the views of those among them who espouse union.

This interpretation may be addressed in several ways. First, one wording of the hadith is:

“When one of you strikes, let him avoid the face, for Allah created Adam in His image.”

He thus forbade striking the face on account of Adam’s having been created, for Allah created Adam in the image of the Most Merciful. If, then, what was meant was the creation of his soul to govern his body without dwelling within it