And His statement:

“He is with you wherever you are”

does not mean that He is mingled with creation. The language does not entail this; moreover, it contradicts the consensus of the early generations of the Ummah and the innate disposition upon which Allah created His creatures. Indeed, the moon is one of Allah’s signs and among the smallest of His creations. It is situated in the sky, yet it is with the traveller wherever he may be.

When I discussed all the names of Allah that are also applied to created beings—such as the term “existence,” which is truly predicated of both the Necessary Being and contingent beings—two leading scholars disputed whether it is predicated equivocally, with distinct meanings, or univocally, with a shared meaning. One said, “It is univocal.” The other said, “It is equivocal, so as not to entail composition.”

The latter said: “Fakhr al-Dīn stated that this dispute rests on whether existence is identical with essence or not. Whoever holds that the existence of every thing is identical with its essence says that the term is predicated equivocally; whoever holds that its existence is something additional to its essence says that it is predicated univocally.”

The first then began arguing in favour of the position that existence is additional to essence, to support his claim that the term is predicated univocally. The second said, “The position of al-Ash‘arī and Ahl al-Sunnah is that existence is identical with essence.” The first denied this.

I said: As for the scholastic theologians of Ahl al-Sunnah, they hold that the existence of every thing is identical with its essence. The other position belongs to the Mu‘tazilah: that the existence of every thing is something additional to its essence. Each of the two was correct in one respect, for the correct position is that these names are predicated univocally, as I have established elsewhere.