and in altering the religion of Islam and distorting words from their proper places. The purpose here is not to describe the various forms of their unbelief, but to explain that they have taken the messengers’ report that Allah will come on the Day of Resurrection in a form as a basis for claiming that, in every form in the world, it is Allah who comes in that form, and that He manifests in the forms of existing things—indeed, that He is identical with them.

Ibn ʿArabī also said in “An Īnāsī Wisdom in the Word of Elias,” after claiming that although the agent is the Real and that which is acted upon is the world, that which is acted upon is one in reality:

“Among the instances of this is His saying, Most High: ‘Call upon Me; I will respond to you.’ Allah Most High says: ‘And when My servants ask you concerning Me, indeed I am near. I respond to the invocation of the supplicant when he calls upon Me’—to the end of the verse [al-Baqara 186].

“For He is only a responder when there is someone calling upon Him. Even though the supplicant and the responder are identical in essence, there is no dispute that the forms differ: they are unquestionably two forms. All these forms are like Zayd’s limbs. It is known that Zayd is a single individual reality, and that his hand is not the form of his foot, his head, his eye, or his eyebrow. Thus he is many