the Creator. Thus, whenever it is claimed in an instance of witnessing, spiritual experience, or unveiling that what the heart witnesses is Allah, yet this contradicts what is known through clear reason and conflicts with the Book, the Sunnah, and consensus, the object witnessed exists either in the mind or in external reality, but it is not Allah. Nor is it that of which it is said, “Its essence is its existence.” A detailed discussion of this belongs elsewhere.

For although al-Mu’assis and those like him share with these people in denying the fundamental principle—that is, in denying the reality of Allah’s existence and His distinctness from His creation, a denial that entails these contradictory doctrines—and in affirming impossible things that contradict that principle, nevertheless he and those like him