“And His statement, ‘Those are with the believers’ (al-Nisa 4:146), and His statement, ‘Fear Allah and be with the truthful’ (al-Tawba 9:119), and His statement, ‘And they strive along with you’ (al-Anfal 8:75), and many similar verses—all these preclude any mixing of His Essence with the essences of creation. Moreover, He prefaces the verse with knowledge and concludes it with knowledge, so the context indicates that He intended to affirm that He is All-Knowing.” (Sharḥ Ḥadīth al-Nuzūl, p. 128) He then clarifies that the term maʿiyya (accompanionship)—even though in ordinary language it may imply sexual union, co-presence, or comparison—when applied to the servants does not contradict His transcendence above His Throne. The nature of His maʿiyya depends on the context: with all creation it is by knowledge, power, and authority; with some of them it is by assistance, victory, and support. (ibid., p. 128) “If this, then, is indeed the view of the salaf regarding maʿiyya—one entirely consistent with the Qur’an, the Sunnah, reason, and innate disposition—it is fitting to inform you, dear reader, that those who espouse hulūl (incarnation)—the Jahmīs—and those of the Sufis who affirm waḥdat al-wujūd (unity of existence) have portrayed the companionship of Allah in the worst possible light and chosen for it the most sordid interpretation. May Allah glorify Himself above what they say and believe.” Al-ʿAllāmah Muḥammad Ḥāmid al-Fiqī comments in his gloss on al-Ājūrī’s Kitāb al-Sharīʿah: “Those who say—may Allah confound and disgrace them—that their Lord is present (ḥāll) in everything, for to them He is the primordial substance (al-mādah al-ūlā) from which all things emanate and are generated, compare it to a seed from which the palm grows, or raw timber from which doors, chairs, windows, and the like are fashioned. According to them—may Allah curse them—this existence has high and low, good and evil; these are the names and attributes of their Lord, and He is manifest (mujāliy) and apparent (mazhar) in it—Glory be to our Lord, far above that is His exaltation! Hence their spokesman, the eloquent Ibn ʿArabī al-Ḥātimī, says: “They have forged for the Lord of creation creeds that I fully accept; They say the servant is the Lord and the Lord the servant—how strange is the one enjoined! If you say ‘servant,’ then that is the Lord; if ‘Lord,’ how can He be bound to duty?” He then cites ʿAbd al-Ghanī an-Nabulusī, who asserts that this pure existence—that is, the True, Exalted—is the reality of all beings; it is the very Being by which they exist, and they have no other existence. It is their inner reality, an absolute hiddenness, from which no created thing is absent. Hence, the true existence has degrees. He enumerates seven ranks, saying: “Thus there are seven ranks: the first is the station of la-ẓuhūr (non-manifestation), and the remaining six are stations of manifestation and the witnessing of all existents. These occur for Him, exalted is He, when the whole is drawn into the depths of His Essence and Being. They constitute His witnessing—in His own Self—of all affairs and creatures in His Essence, in the form of a hidden, unseen witnessing.”