I said:

“These people say that there is no Lord above the Throne to be called upon, nor any God above heaven to be worshipped; there is nothing there but sheer nonexistence and absolute negation. They say that the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was not taken up to Allah Most High, but merely ascended to heaven and came back down, and that a person making supplication does not raise his hands to Allah.

“Some of them say, ‘Allah is existence itself; I am Allah; you are Allah—as are the dog, the pig, and excrement.’ They also say, ‘Allah dwells in these things.’”

He found this outrageous and was horrified that anyone would say such a thing. He asked, “These people?”—meaning Ibn Makhlūf and his associates.

I replied:

“I have not heard their statements, nor have they said anything to me, so it is not lawful for me to attribute to them anything I do not know. But this is the position of those who disputed with me in Syria and debated me. They explicitly stated this to me, and one of them explicitly declared that he would not accept anything the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said on this subject that contradicted their views.”

As the conversation continued, the man began listening attentively to what I said and taking it in, having seen my anger. Thus, I learned from several sources that he left happy and pleased with what he had heard from me. He said:

“This man is in the right, while these people have lost Allah. Otherwise, where is Allah?”

This is what everyone whose innate disposition is sound says. Jamāl al-Dīn al-Akhram likewise said this to al-Malik al-Kāmil when the latter spoke to him about these people. Al-Akhram told him:

“These people have lost your God, so find yourself a god to worship.”

It is known, by the unanimous agreement of Muslims, that Allah is truly Living, truly All-Knowing, truly All-Powerful, truly All-Hearing, and truly All-Seeing, and likewise with His other names and attributes. This is denied only by