as the spirit of the world, as one of them said, speaking on behalf of the True One, Most High:

“I am the spirit of all things; if they are parted from me,
regard them as faded traces.”

Although some proponents of divine indwelling and union who say that He is everywhere may say this, these philosophers, Abū Hāmid, and others like him do not. Rather, in their view, whoever says this is among the most unbelieving of people. In this judgment, he is correct and agrees with the Muslim community, although this statement resembles what was initially related concerning the Jahmiyyah, who said that He is everywhere, as was previously reported from Ahmad. The falsity of this statement is utterly evident, and we have already explained enough of its false implications.

This entails that the Lord Himself is the spirit present in the jinn and devils, in Hell and elsewhere—the spirit within the body—and that the Lord experiences pleasure and torment, satisfaction and anger, joy and distress, happiness and sorrow, through every instance of these found in the bodies of the world, just as the spirit experiences within itself