He said: “On this theme they recited:

I envy my own eyes their sight of you,
Until I lower my gaze when I look at you.
I see you move with those beguiling ways
That captivate me—and am jealous even of you over you.”

He also mentioned this in the chapter on love, saying: “I heard Shaykh Abū ʿAbd al-Rahmān al-Sulamī say: I heard Mansūr ibn ʿAbd Allāh say: I heard al-Shiblī say: ‘Love is to jealously guard the beloved against being loved by someone like you.’”

This understanding, too, is profoundly flawed. It reflects ignorance of Allah and of what is due to Him, likens Him to a human beloved, and assumes that the speaker’s seeing Allah would entail some deficiency or harm for Allah. A person is jealous over his beloved only regarding something that harms either the beloved or the lover himself. He is therefore jealous of sharing his beloved with another because of the harm this entails. He may even be jealous of himself over his beloved, feeling that this entails a deficiency. All of this is impossible with respect to Allah.