“If you say, ‘A servant,’ then that is negation,” because, in his view, the servant has no created existence; rather, his existence is the necessary, pre-eternal existence itself. This has been discussed at length elsewhere, for the man’s statements explain one another. This principle—the doctrine of the unity of existence—is his position, as well as that of Ibn Sab‘īn, his companion al-Shushtarī, al-Tilimsānī, al-Sadr al-Qūnawī, Sa‘īd al-Farghānī, ‘Abd Allāh al-Balyānī, Ibn al-Fārid, the author of Nazm al-Sulūk (The Poem of the Spiritual Path), and other heretics who profess unity, indwelling, and union.

As for the meaning of this poetry, his words, “If only I knew: who is subject to obligations?” are a rhetorical question denying that anyone is subject to obligations. He then says, “If you say, ‘A servant,’ then he is dead,” while elsewhere he says, “then that is negation.” Both are false: the servant exists and has a real being; he is not nonexistent or devoid of reality. Rather, Allah is the One who gave him existence and reality. This is the religion of the Muslims: everything other than Allah is created by Allah and exists because Allah has given it existence. Nothing exists except through Allah’s bringing it into existence; considered in itself, it has no claim to anything but nonexistence (1) . . . existent, living, speaking, acting, willing, and capable; rather, all this . . . (2) does not preclude the reality of their entities, attributes, and actions.