resembles yours,’ for Allah created Adam in His image,” make mere resemblance to Allah’s face a reason not to strike it. Yet according to them, every blow struck or killing committed in the world falls upon the Lord Himself, and He Himself strikes Himself. The entire world, they hold, is Allah’s essential image. By this they do not mean a created image belonging to Him; rather, the very existence of the world is identical to the very existence of the Real.

Moreover, the author of al-Fusūs—who, despite being their leading authority, is the furthest of them from outright unbelief because his discourse mingles truth with falsehood—distinguishes between existence and fixed reality. He says that things are fixed in their individual identities from eternity, and that the very existence emanating upon them is