As for the third kind of what may be called annihilation, it consists in perceiving that nothing exists but Allah, and that the Creator and creation have one and the same existence, with no distinction between the Lord and the servant. This is the annihilation of those given to misguidance and heresy, who fall into indwelling and union.
When an upright spiritual master says, “I see none but Allah,” or “I look to none but Allah,” or something similar, he means: “I see no lord besides Him, no creator besides Him, no governor besides Him, and no deity worthy of worship except Him. Nor do I look to anything else out of love for it, fear of it, or hope in it.” For the eye looks towards whatever occupies the heart. Whoever loves something, hopes in it, or fears it turns towards it. But when the heart has no love, hope, fear, hatred, or any other attachment to something, it does not deliberately turn towards it, look at it, or seek to see it. If one happens to see it, merely seeing it without any further involvement, it is like seeing a wall or anything else to which the heart has no attachment.
The righteous spiritual masters—may Allah be pleased with them—speak of aspects of pure monotheism and the realization of complete sincerity in all religious devotion, such that the servant neither turns towards nor looks to anything other than Allah out of love, fear, or hope. Rather, the heart is empty of created things, free of attachment to them, and looks upon them only by Allah’s light. Thus, through the True One he hears, through the True One he sees, through the True One he grasps, and through the True One he walks. Among created things, he loves what Allah loves and hates what Allah hates; he befriends those whom Allah befriends and is hostile to those opposed by